Piano Man
by Trench Kamen
Summary: Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth have finally been able to settle down together. Phoenix's musical sense never left, even after re-gaining his bar: he still associates songs with memories, good and bad, hilarious and heartbreaking.
1. Prologue: Can You Play Me a Memory?

**Prologue: Can You Play Me a Memory?**

"Uncle Miles?"

Miles Edgeworth looked aside from the holograph-display in front of him, sheets of crystalline menus arranged three-square around him. One of his students was standing in his office doorway, shifting nervously, glancing at him through the white window of his inbox. Edgeworth touched the top-right corner of the window with his fingertips and moved it in front of him, overlapping another document.

"Toby." He nodded toward a chair on the other side of his horseshoe desk. "Have a seat."

Toby sat down uncomfortably, eyes still shifting around the room. Edgeworth sat back in his seat, moving the menus out of his line of vision with quick flourishes of his fingertips. He smiled in spite of himself. It was stunning, really, how much Toby's mannerisms resembled his father's when he was nervous.

"I'm glad you could make it. I'm afraid we need to discuss your grade."

Toby nodded dumbly. "I really am trying my hardest, Uncle Miles. I just don't… get a lot of your class."

"Well, you're too far in to drop without repercussions, I'm afraid."

Toby nodded. Miles pulled up another menu and scooted it to the lower-left corner of his range of vision. He removed his glasses, cleaned them on the hem of his vest, and pushed them back over his nose. "…and it looks like even if you get a hundred percent on this final, which I might as well warn you is comprehensive and not easy, you'd scrape a B- with curving and a generous round-up."

"It's just not going to happen."

Miles nodded and sat back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach. Toby looked up a little.

"I am doing a lot better in Uncle Nick's class, sir. I… I really like law, and I love what you're teaching me, but a lot of it just doesn't make sense."

"Well, Uncle Nick's class is discussion-and-participation based. I'm afraid I'm taken with the crusty tradition of papers and textbooks."

"I'm a hands-on learner."

"You know, unfortunately, law school is vastly dominated by classes like mine. I'm afraid Uncle Nick is an outlier."

"A what?"

"An anomaly. Not the norm." Miles sighed and leaned forward a little, scanning the boy's face carefully. "And my undergrad class is far less competitive than my law school classes. To be honest, were you in law school, I would have to fail you."

Toby nodded sedately. Miles waited in case he wanted to put words in order before saying something, and when greeted with silence, continued.

"I'm sure somebody's told you before that we're all cut out for different things, right?"

"You're saying I shouldn't be a lawyer, huh?"

"I'm saying you should take a serious look at the reality of what you're trying to get into." _If you even get into law school._ "You haven't got a bad head on your shoulders. I just don't think it's best used in… traditional law practice. I really think you're more of a hands-on man."

"Like Mom and Dad."

"I could have told you that when you were just a twinkle in your father's eye."

Toby grimaced slightly. "I really hate that saying."

"So do I. Here's what I want you to do." Miles pointed at a hologram-shape of a packet and drug it between himself and Toby. Toby pressed a button on his watch, and the packet contracted, drifted from Miles to Toby as a ball of golden light, and unfolded over the halo of light around the face of Toby's watch. "I want you to seriously think about some of these programs. Forensics is becoming quite an exciting field. And I really think it's more suited to your… innate abilities."

Toby had touched the packet, and it had unfolded into several windows, each containing a pamphlet. He was scanning them quickly, flipping through them with his fingertips. "I was thinking maybe paralegal."

"You wouldn't like it. It's all paperwork."

Toby nodded and brought his fingers together over the pamphlets, as though he was picking up sand, and they re-condensed into the packet icon. He dragged the packet into the face of his watch, where it disappeared. His eyes darted to the timepiece; it was obvious he wanted to get somewhere, probably meet with his friends. Miles' face softened.

"Look. If you study for this final, go over all the review questions I gave you in class—" Toby stiffened slightly; it was obvious he hadn't written them down. "—I can guarantee you at least a D. Okay?"

Toby stood. "Thanks, Uncle Miles."

He hesitated; it was obvious he wanted to say something else. Edgeworth sat back and arched his eyebrows.

"Did you really… remember when Mom was pregnant with me?"

"Like it was yesterday."

"But I thought you were in Europe at that time."

"Your Uncle Nick told me. He was the one who was actually helping your mom and dad when they found out they were going to have you."

Toby nodded silently. Edgeworth pushed his glasses up his nose and sat up.

"So that's settled, then. You go and study, and I'll see you next week."

"Um, I thought you were coming to dinner on Saturday."

"Well, then, Uncle Miles will see you on Saturday, and Professor Edgeworth will see you next week."

"All right, cool. I'll see you later, then."

It was amazing how much noise that kid could make just exiting a room. Edgeworth smiled to himself and checked his watch; just after five. He gathered all of the hologram sheets around him in his fingers and pressed them into a small dome on the top of his desk. He gathered the dome and put it in his pocket, glad for his shoulder's sake he no longer had to carry a briefcase around for every file he may need during the day, locked up his office with his thumbprint, and knocked on the office next-door to his. As expected, he got no answer, and it was dark inside. He smiled to himself and left the Law Building.

It was a beautiful evening; the walk to the Music Building was quite enjoyable. He stepped into the cool antechamber, and as expected, somebody was picking out a melody on the piano, hesitantly, one note at a time. He rounded the corner, and Phoenix Wright was sitting at the old Grand Piano by the staircase, picking something out with his forefinger while talking to two of his law students standing aside him. Edgeworth smiled and leaned against the column rounding the corner, crossing his arms. The acoustics in the building were quite good; he could hear the discussion clearly. One of the girls pulled up a document on her watch, and Phoenix leaned over to read it, his nose almost touching the hologram, squinting. Miles sighed heavily.

"You see, this is why I keep telling him to get glasses. He's convinced he's still twenty-five."

Phoenix turned in his seat and arched his eyebrows at Edgeworth. The girls giggled. He had them both in his class last year, though damned if he could remember their names at the moment. He was certain one of them had changed her hair color _again_.

"Hey, Professor Edgeworth."

"Hello."

"I think I'm in trouble for something already." Phoenix nodded toward Edgeworth and winked at the students. "You girls may want to clear out."

They exchanged looks and started giggling again. They bid both professors good-bye and left, glancing behind them and whispering. Edgeworth sighed and sat down on the piano bench, placing his hands over Phoenix's and gently lifting them off.

"You know," said Phoenix, "I'm fairly convinced that the female students are more on to us than the male students."

"You should let the students who can actually _play_ have time on the piano. Especially when you're supposed to have office hours."

"I'm doing a service. My students know they can find me here if I'm not in my office."

"Uh-huh."

Miles absent-mindedly fixed the spikes Phoenix still insisted on putting in his hair, though they had thinned, and, had Phoenix not dyed his hair black, would be shot with gray. The medication he was taking was slowing the receding of his hairline, but his forehead was noticeably barer than it was in his youth.

Phoenix started picking out a tune on the piano again, something vaguely familiar, though damned if Miles could remember what it was. He sighed.

"Guess who I just saw in my office?"

"Who?"

"Toby Gumshoe."

"Hmmm." Phoenix paused, turning his head slightly enough for Miles to see that he was smiling. "God, that whole pregnancy ordeal seems like it happened only yesterday."

"I know. He even asked me about that." Miles sighed and gave up on Phoenix's hair, then wrapped his arms around Phoenix's waist. It wasn't as slim as it once was—though they both tried to stay healthy. They kept trying to one-up each other to have the least stomach paunch. Miles smiled and buried his nose in Phoenix's hair, closing his eyes.

"I can't believe how old we're getting," Phoenix said quietly. He was still picking out that damned song; what was it called…?

"Oh, hush. We've years and years yet ahead of us."

"Yeah, but…" Phoenix stopped playing to run his fingers through his hair. "Don't you ever wish we were twenty again? Back when we were young heartthrobs?"

"You wouldn't have half as many wrinkles if you'd just get glasses so you don't squint so badly. And no, I don't."

"What philosophical gem do you have as a reason for that answer?"

"I don't." Miles kissed Phoenix on the top of the head. "I just wouldn't have you in my life if we were twenty again."

Phoenix leaned back to look up at Miles, smiling. He kissed him softly before straightening back up and continuing with the melody.

"I just meant physically."

"Ah!" Miles snapped his fingers. "That's what it is."

Phoenix kept playing. "What?"

"_Son, can you play me a memory? I'm not really sure how it goes_…"

Phoenix sighed and shook his head, eyes half-lidded in concentration. "I don't even like Billy Joel. I don't know why I'm playing this song."

"_But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man's clothes…"_

Phoenix stopped playing and turned to face Edgeworth again, arching his eyebrow. "Apparently, you do. You're not a bad singer, by the way. I keep telling you that."

Edgeworth shrugged. "Well, maybe it's synchronicity."

"Come again?"

"Of course, always for you."

Phoenix punched Miles in the ribs softly. Miles laughed.

"I mean, to be honest, every time I heard this damn song after you started playing at bars, I thought of you."

Phoenix rubbed between his brows. "Oh Christ—"

"What? I know it's a superficial association, but—"

"No, do you know _how many times_ people asked me to play that song? And I _can't_ sing very well."

Phoenix continued playing, this time a different song, one that also tugged at the edge of Miles' memory, though his mind was running to the part of 'Piano Man' that reminded him most strongly of Phoenix, reminded him mostly strongly of that turbulent period in their lives. He rested his cheek on Phoenix's head and stared at the sunset light shifting across the marble floor. He would be loathe to admit how many times that song was repeated on his mp3 player back then.

_It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday,  
And the manager gives me a smile  
'Cause he knows that it's me they've been coming to see  
To forget about life for awhile.  
And the piano sounds like a carnival  
And the microphone smells like a beer  
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar  
And say "Man, what are you doin' here?"_

_This is where Phoenix belongs. Not a bar pecking away at a piano. _

Miles turned toward the piano again, suddenly remembering what Phoenix was playing _now_. He arched his eyebrows. "And what memory are you playing me with _this_?"

Phoenix shrugged. "It was my vocation for a while, playing memories."

"You're not going to make a joke about 'playing' memories in court?"

"Well, _now_ there'd be no point." He stopped playing and stood, turning to face Miles and smiling tiredly. "Ready to go home?"

_Home._

Miles nodded and smiled. He'd never forgotten what a luxury it was to be able to hear those words, see Phoenix say them, and wind up in the same place, sleeping in the same bed, at the end of the day. Just being able to kiss him good night, and wake up with him in the morning, was heavenly. He could tell by Phoenix's silence, by the way he squeezed Miles' hand before they left and kept glancing and smiling at him on the way to the car, that his mind was also back in that period of separation and tribulation. That period of seven years where Phoenix really was the Piano Man. The long darkness before the dawn.

But he also got the feeling that Phoenix's mind was somewhere lost along another memory, one that Miles was only tangentially-involved in. And even only the tangential involvement made Miles feel warm and happy for _those two_, though he'd be damned if he'd ever admit it to anybody. Not even to their kid.

He still couldn't keep himself from smiling as he started the car. Especially as Toby Gumshoe himself light-bladed past and thumped the trunk of the car with his fist playfully, waving behind himself as he sped off.


	2. Memory 01: Fools Rush In

**Memory 01: Fools Rush In**

"Pal, I really gotta talk to you about something."

Phoenix and another man—a scruffy, hard-looking customer—looked up from the poker table. They were standing, leaning on their hands and agreeing on the stakes of a game. The man looked Gumshoe up and down impatiently, chewing on the end of a cigar. Gumshoe knew he looked desperate and ragged, but 'ragged' without the deliberate flair that would make him look elegantly ragged. He was an emotional wreck, an interference with the ambiance of the game.

Everybody breathed out steam. It was cold; hard-packed frost was caked on the floor and the bar along the side of the wall. Gumshoe envied Wright his stupid knit cap—for the life of him he still didn't know what "PaPa" meant—as his own ears were already burning-numb. He wondered how the hell Wright could wear sandals down here, even if he did wear socks. His own toes were as cold as his ears, and he was wearing leather shoes, patched as they were with duct tape.

"Gumshoe…" Phoenix said quietly. His eyebrows furrowed in concern. "What's wrong?"

"It's Maggey, I—I screwed up real bad, pal. I—" He glanced at the other man, whose eyes were narrowing impatiently. "—I really need to talk you to private."

"He's a cop?" the man snarled at Phoenix.

"No, his last name is just 'Gumshoe'. Let me handle this."

Phoenix put his arm around Gumshoe and led the taller man up the stairs to a main bar and turned into a side room. It was warmer up here, thankfully, devoid of ice, but still cool enough for breath to steam. Phoenix bid him wait a moment and brought him a full bottle of the club's house wine. Gumshoe took it numbly, not even glancing at the label, and held it out as Phoenix jammed a corkscrew into the cork and twisted it out.

"She's pregnant—" Gumshoe said dumbly. "I don't know what to do—"

"Five minutes won't make a difference at this point." Phoenix closed his Swiss Army knife and put it the pocket of his jeans. "Let me handle this guy, and then we can talk."

"F-five minutes, pal?"

"He's a sucker. Easy as hell to read." Phoenix smiled wanly, and Gumshoe noted how many lines had been etched around Phoenix's eyes in the past few years since his disbarment, how much the very _quality_ of his skin had lost a great deal of its youth. "Just wait here and have a drink, okay? I'll be right back."

Gumshoe nodded, and Phoenix left. He looked down at the bottle in his hands, rotating it slowly to read the label. Vintage, it said, a house wine from 2001. Gumshoe was usually a beer and hard whiskey man, more by financial restriction than by choice, so this meant nothing to him. He shrugged and took a deep swig from the bottle. It burnt going down, filling his mouth with the familiar volatile warmth of alcohol, and something in the taste reminded him of deep velvet. He sighed heavily and sat back in the wooden chair, waiting for the familiar warm numbness to flood his limbs, and took another deep drink. The bottle was empty by the time Phoenix returned.

"Good God, man," Phoenix said, taking the bottle from Gumshoe's clumsy fingers. "You do realize this is stronger than it tastes, right?"

"I screwed up real bad, pal," Gumshoe muttered.

"Yes, you told me." Phoenix set the bottle next to him as he sat on the wooden ottoman, staring into Gumshoe's eyes carefully. "So, Maggey's pregnant, huh?"

"I—I shoulda used a condom, but she said she was on birth control, and—"

"The pill?"

"No, this… new herbal stuff, Chinese. Doesn't mess up her hormones or nothing. Got it in Chinatown; said it's all natural; she wanted to try something new since she'd heard that the pill can cause cancer…" He hiccupped, and Phoenix sighed heavily and shook his head, pressing between his eyes with his forefinger and thumb.

"Gumshoe..."

"I don't know what to do." He buried his head in his hands. "I don't get paid nothing, pal. You know that. I can hardly feed myself right. I got bad hours. I can't support a kid and a wife."

"Well, there is the alternative…"

Gumshoe looked up angrily. "I ain't leavin' her, never!"

"That's not what I meant." Phoenix sighed, patting Gumshoe's shaking shoulder. He carefully put his words into order. "…Planned Parenthood has cheap rates for… termination. Especially if you're low income. If you're not ready to support a kid…"

Gumshoe hiccupped and shook his head violently. Phoenix sighed again and rubbed his back, allowing him ample time to put his words in order. The 'new waitress', (who Phoenix knew damn well had been 'new' there multiple times under different aliases, but he was sitting on his knowledge for the time being), Anya—or whatever-the-hell Russian name she had taken this time around—poked her head in asking in broken English if they needed any help; Phoenix shook his head and asked for some warm borsht for their visitor. And more wine.

"…I can't…" Gumshoe said, finally, after Anya had shut the door. "I can't, I can't…"

"I'm afraid that's Maggey's decision now," Phoenix said quietly. "The baby is growing in her body."

"I mean, I thought about it; I ain't stupid, but I can't… I can't…"

He buried his head in his hands, clutching his hair between his fingers. He took in a sharp breath, trying to curb a sob. He heard Phoenix sigh, heard him walk across the room and return. Phoenix pressed a tissue box into Gumshoe's hands; he pulled the top tissue out and blew his nose loudly.

"…how far along is she?"

Gumshoe wiped his nose with the damp tissue and threw it on the ground by his feet. He was staring at the concrete floor. "…two months, somethin' like that."

"So abortion is still a legal option right now."

Gumshoe did not look up. Phoenix scratched his shoulderblades.

"Look…" Phoenix sighed. "I know you don't want to think about this, but for her good, you guys have to talk about it if you're going to even consider it. The longer you wait, the harder it is for everybody. The harder it is on Maggey's body."

Light spilled into the dark room. Phoenix looked up; Anya was edging the door open with her rear, balancing two bowls of borsht in her thick mittens. He mumbled a quiet thank you as she set them on the coffee table.

"Everything is alright, da?"

"Everything's fine, Anya. Thanks."

"You know, you have customers, they want to play you, da?"

"I know, Anya. I'll take care of it in a moment."

There was a harsh flash that made Gumshoe yelp in surprise and look up; Anya lowered her camera, smiling shyly.

"I take picture of friends helping friends, da?"

"Anya, this isn't a good time."

Anya smiled shyly and bowed, leaving. Phoenix sighed heavily and took one of the bowls, shoving it into Gumshoe's clumsy hands.

"Eat, if you're going to. We can't stay here."

"Why not?"

"Because I absolutely do not trust her and she's collecting evidence of you consorting with a defense attorney who was disbarred because of forgery, and you need that job to support your baby."

"I don't believe a word of it, pal!" Gumshoe sat upright suddenly, almost knocking his bowl off his legs. Phoenix caught it and slid it back onto the detective's thighs. "And neither does Mr. Edgeworth, and we haven't given up on it yet!"

Phoenix smiled wanly. "That's very kind, but your boss might not feel the same way."

"I'll never forget… what you did for Maggey, pal."

Phoenix waved his hand dismissively. "I was happy to. Eat, eat." He picked up his own bowl and started eating. Gumshoe stared at the spoon in his hand numbly. "Speaking of Miss Byrde, where is she right now?"

"Oh she—I think she needed to talk to another woman, you know, and she went to Kurain to talk to Maya about all this." He hesitated for a moment. "That… _is_ where she is right now, right?"

"Oh, yeah. More training. It isn't a long train ride." Phoenix nudged Gumshoe's hand. "Eat. We can talk later, but we need to go somewhere private."

--

"You didn't use protection?" Maya half-yelled.

"I did." Maggey was hugging her knees, curled up against the wall in Kurain's antechamber. Maya was half-ready to slap her; only Maggey's abject confusion stayed her hand. Tears were already running down her cheeks. "I used these herbs from Chinatown; they balance your body's hormones without synthetics so you don't get pregnant, and—"

"That stuff is bullshit!"

"I—I thought you guys'd believe in that stuff here."

"I believe in what _works_, and that crap doesn't. And you didn't use a condom?"

Maggey shook her head vigorously, sobbing a little. "It… I didn't think we needed to, and it's not as… close… and we were already going and it was so nice and I didn't want to stop… We'd never had to use condoms before…"

"Isn't that because you _used_ to be on a _real_ pill?"

Maggey's sobbing escalated. Maya sighed and slid down the wall next to Maggey, hugging her as she sobbed. It was three in the morning; Maya had been shocked when Maggey had come knocking on the temple doors, still dressed in her police uniform (apparently, Maya had confirmed, she had re-joined the force) and with raw eyes. She had the pregnancy test confirmed at the doctor's office that afternoon; she was two months pregnant, and Gumshoe was the father. Maggey was vehement on the latter point. Maya knew Maggey too well to push it further, and there was no reason to doubt she was telling the truth.

"How's the baby?"

Maggey gasped in shock and looked up. Pearl was standing above them in her sleep clothes. Maggey curled her legs tighter and hugged her still-flat abdomen.

"How did you know?"

"I feel the life you're carrying in you. It's about two months along, right?"

Maggey nodded numbly. Pearl sat down cross-legged in front of Maya and Maggey, then brought her crossed knees up and hugged them. Maya still could not believe how much Pearl was growing; she was cresting puberty, gaining curves, and a stunning amount of insight to complement her inherent abilities.

"I don't…" Maggey sniffed wetly. "I don't know what to do. The doctor said if I want to… terminate it… I have to decide fast. And nobody at the office knows…"

"The father does?"

"Yes, of course. I told him… this evening." She sniffed wetly and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "He… doesn't know what to do either. And I know he's really worried about me."

"Does he know you're here?"

Maggey nodded. Pearl adjusted her legs and moved forward, placing her hand on Maggey's stomach. Maggey took in a sharp breath.

"…it's Detective Gumshoe, isn't it?"

Maggey nodded. Pearl kept her hand on her abdomen a little longer, and then drew back.

"He loves you very much. More than anything in the world. And he's very worried about you."

Maggey smiled and wiped her eyes, blushing slightly, recalling memories of flesh and intimacy and gazes full of love, and drew back into herself as though trying to draw warmth from her memories. "Mm. I know." She closed her eyes and smirked, suddenly, at some memory, one so deeply-ingrained and sensory Maya had trouble deciphering it. "I can't believe I ever wondered if he was gay for Mr. Edgeworth."

In spite of herself, Maya started giggling loudly. "I can't believe we ever wondered if Mr. Edgeworth was _straight_."

"Oh my God, I know." Maggey giggled as well, wiping her eyes again. "But Rick _really_ likes women. Like, he has this thing for breasts that borders on some sort of weird mother-complex."

"You mean he—?"

Maggey cupped her breasts in her hands and pretended to bury her nose between them, making licking noises. Maya shrieked with laughter before clapping her hand over her mouth, muffling herself. Pearl was giggling madly and fell over onto her side.

"Oh my God, he motorboats you?"

"Pearl!" Maya smacked her on the thigh. "How do you even know what that is?"

"I'm _twelve_!"

"Exactly my point!" _It's amazing how much she picks up when she goes wandering off on her own for days._ "And that's not motorboating, anyway. Motorboating is when you vibrate with your lips and—"

Pearl started blowing raspberries, and Maya shrieked again and fell onto her side, clapping her hands over her mouth. Maggey turned bright red and shook her head vigorously, laughing loudly.

"No, no, no, no, no; oh my God, no…"

"Pearl! You little ho!"

"Did you just seriously call me a 'ho'?"

"Yes!"

"I don't know," Maggey said between giggles, "I always think of little Pearls as being nine."

Pearl drew herself up and cupped her very well-developing breasts proudly. "Oh, really? I've already got bigger breasts than Mystic Maya, even if that isn't saying much."

"Oh my God, shut up. And you're not wearing a bra right now."

"How can you tell?"

"I just _can_."

Maggey was still giggling. Maya was relieved to see her smile; so many of the lines she had seen ghosting her face were smoothing away.

"Hey, at least Gumshoe can make you a lot of food, so you're not, like, eating the couch. Does he still make those awesome wieners?"

"Oh, speaking of which—" Pearl said, "—can anybody actually call him Dick without, like, bursting out laughing? I didn't think anybody could actually have that nickname anymore."

Maggey giggled again and shook her head. "No. He hates that. I call him Rick, but I've never heard anybody else call him by his first name, ever."

"Cause I could think of a ton of jokes," said Maya. She smirked and leaned in closer toward the circle the girls were forming. "Does he have a big…?"

Maggey nodded, her smirk cracking into a sly grin. "And what he lacks in skill and experience, he makes up for with enthusiasm."

Maya cracked up again and clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oh my God…"

"But doesn't that hurt? I mean, if he's unskilled and big and going at it like a jackhammer—"

"_Pearl_!" Maya shrieked.

"I didn't say _I_ was unskilled," Maggey said slyly. "He may be, but I had a lot of boyfriends in high school. I'm used to handling unskilled oversexed men."

"_Maggey_!" Maya gasped through laughter.

"I think Nick would have a heart attack if he saw this side of you."

"Not anymore, no," Maggey hugged her knees to her. "I want love now, not just fun. I've grown out of that."

"But I'd never picture _you_…"

"People always assume sweet girls don't like to have fun. It's kind of stupid. Women are sexual creatures too. I don't like the stereotype that only selfish or bad women like to sleep around. It's… a what? Double-standard?"

"It's always the quiet ones," said Pearl.

"Yeah, I don't like that either," said Maya.

"Well, were you a 'bad girl' too, Maya?"

"Growing up here? No." Maya hugged her knees. "Do you know how many men there are in Kurain? Like, two."

"So, it's not like a prison movie where you all turn lesbo on each other and experiment?"

Maya shrieked with laughter again and clutched her sides. "Yeah, totally. It's nonstop lesbian action up here."

"We use the magatama as strap-ons and the beads as ben-wa balls."

"_Pearl_!"

Pearl smiled devilishly and hugged her knees tighter. "What? You started it."

"And you took it too far!"

Maggey was laughing so hard she was having trouble breathing. Maya sat up, glad to see that Maggey was smiling again. She rubbed Maggey's back.

"Oh, we're getting distracted. I'm sorry."

"No, no, it's fine." Maggey pulled out another tissue and wiped her eyes. "I really, really need to laugh right now."

"Does sex feel good?"

Maggey and Maya looked up at Pearl, Maya half-shocked, Maggey sniffing and wiping her nose.

"What, hon? Is that a serious question?"

"Well, I'm curious, of course," Pearl said, crossing her legs seriously, eyes rapt, "and it's not like Mystic Maya would know, and every time Mystic Mia is around, I don't have time to ask her about Mr. Armando."

"Uh…" Maggey wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "Yeah, it feels really, really good. If you do it right. It's harder for the woman to have a good time than the guy; if the guy's really stupid or doesn't think about your needs, it's kind of lame. But if he's willing to communicate and learn, it's really, really nice."

"Like Detective Gumshoe?"

Maggey blushed and nodded, smiling to herself. "Yeah…"

"What does an orgasm feel like?"

"Pearl!" Maya gaped at her cousin. "What has gotten into you tonight? We're trying to talk about a pregnancy!"

"It's okay," said Maggey. "I'd rather talk about this." She thought for a moment. "Well, it's something you can find out for yourself. You don't need a man for that."

"I know Mystic Maya masturbates, but she doesn't like to talk about it, and I've tried, but I never got very far before I got bored."

"Then you're clearly not doing it right—"

"PEARL!" Maya shrieked. "How do you know about that?"

"You release a lot of mental and psychic energy when you orgasm." Pearl adjusted her legs beneath her. "We don't study it here, but a lot of mystics focus on that sort of energy or bondage to another person."

"Oh, yeah, huh…" Maggey curled up again and looked over her legs. "…do you guys do Tarot readings or anything like that? I…" The gravity returned to her eyes. "…I don't know what to do. I really don't. It's not like I have an answer in my heart I don't want to face or something."

"We're not clairvoyants, I'm afraid."

"Oh."

There was something else Maggey wanted to say; it was obvious, but she was biting her lip, looking up at Maya and Pearl nervously, glancing back down, looking up again, her arms tightly around her abdomen. Maya heard her thoughts, though, clearly as they had been yelled. The psychic force, the sheer need behind them, almost made Maya cry.

_I want to talk to my mom._

Maya glanced at Pearl; it was obvious Pearl understood. Pearl glanced at Maya and nodded firmly. Maya nodded back and took Maggey's hand.

"Maggey, come on. There's somebody I think who wants to talk to you, and who loves you very much."

--

"Have you guys moved in together yet?"

"No."

Gumshoe was stretched out supine on the Wright Talent Agency's red leather couch, coat draped over the arm under his head, tie loose and shirt unbuttoned. He belched softly; he was utterly smashed. Phoenix was sitting on the matching chair close to Gumshoe's head, sipping some of the wine he had nipped from the Borsht Bowl Club. It had taken some convincing, but he had gotten off early that night. It was a Wednesday, anyway; already slow, and the few customers he had waiting to play him were low-rollers. It was silent and there was little danger of interruption; Trucy was long asleep in the nook she had made for herself in the office, and she had been out late practicing sleight-of-hand tricks for tourists again. She had used part of her earnings to buy a bowl of apricots for the piano-counter, and Phoenix had already eaten three of them.

"You're going to be hung over as hell tomorrow. What time do you have to show up?"

"Six, same as always."

Phoenix looked at his watch. It was three in the morning.

"You better call in sick."

Gumshoe nodded. "But I need to start saving money… for the baby…"

"You're on salary, not hourly. You have sick days."

"Yeah…" Gumshoe rolled over and stared at Phoenix, bleary, drunk. "Hey, pal?"

"Yeah?"

"How do you stand… being away from Mr. Edgeworth so much?"

Phoenix stared back at him. "It's… hard," he finally said. "It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But we talk on the videophone a lot, and I know we'll get to be together someday."

"Have you gone out to visit him? He hasn't been back here in a while."

"Once." Phoenix looked down at his hands, smiling at the memory. _Warm sheets, lazy mornings, soft skin—_"In Belgium. It was an awesome little town. I'd love to go back as soon as I can swing it."

"I can't pretend I know what it's like to love… a guy, pal, you know? It seems so unnatural to me. Like, I got guys I love like brothers, you know, but…"

"It's no different."

"But how would you know—"

Gumshoe quailed. Phoenix knew he was glaring, though he shouldn't; Gumshoe was simple, but honest, and never meant any offence to anybody.

"Oh, that's right, huh. That… girl."

"It's in the past." _It's in the past. I can finally say that, and mean it in my heart._ _Edgeworth's put her so far in the distance._ "And even if I had never loved a woman… I'd just know. It's the same force. The same power, and fear, and pain, and ultimately, the same elation and joy."

"Oh, huh."

There was an awkward silence, and Phoenix started peeling the flesh off another apricot.

"But, you know, you don't have to worry about Mr. Edgeworth getting knocked up."

Phoenix laughed softly and pulled a strip of fruit off with his teeth. "True." He chewed, the strip disappearing little by little, swallowed. "I have to deal with his mood swings enough as it is. Besides, I already have a daughter. One is enough. Trust me. I'm going gray before my time with all she gets up to."

"I don't know what to do, pal."

"Well, when was the last time you slept, first off?"

"I—I dunno." Gumshoe pulled out his battered cell phone and checked the time. "…yesterday?"

"Things usually look better after a night of sleep."

"Do you really think I can sleep right now?"

"After all that wine? I'd be shocked if you don't."

"What if…" Gumshoe rolled over onto his side and propped himself up on his arm. "What if Maggey needs me? What if she comes looking for me at my place?"

"I assume she knows your cell phone number. Or at least, I hope she does."

Gumshoe nodded and put his phone back into his pocket before collapsing back onto the couch. He closed his eyes and breathed out slowly, then tilted his head back and opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling.

"Thanks, pal. Really… thank you so much."

--

_She's so beautiful._

He had thought it a million times before, and the power and truth of that statement never failed to enthrall him.

Gumshoe hovered in the half-twilight between sleep and wakefulness, unaware that the blanket around him had been draped there at some point, for some reason thinking it had always been there.

It was hot in the reception room. A sheen of sweat formed at the nape of his neck and his hairline, but he was too tired, too comfortable in his memory, to care.

_Maggey sat with her legs curled to her side on Gumshoe's bed, naked—she had stunning, lithe curves, steamlined and made strong by a policewoman's workout, gorgeous, shapely breasts, just the right size to fit in Gumshoe's hands, a thatch of dark hair at the juncture of her legs, partially cut-off from view by the bent of her thighs—the curve of her stomach was smooth and strong—and those eyes, and that soft smile, totally accepting and comfortable—_

That was what struck Gumshoe hardest, the ease and comfort they felt in one another's presence as they had gotten closer to one another over the years. He had recalled being told once that after sleeping with somebody, you feel totally comfortable just sitting with them for hours, without nervous chatter to break the silence. It was true, the comfort and ease he felt around her was profound, and he didn't feel so inept and useless—

"_You're beautiful," he said. He was lying on his side on the bed, also naked, subconsciously tracing his fingertips along the comforter in a ghost of the motions he wanted to make on her skin, did make on her skin, _would_ make on her skin._

_Maggey smiled shyly and glanced at the bedspread for a moment, and Gumshoe hoped she wasn't going to do the thing girls do when they're complimented on their appearance and deny it—_

"_You are too."_

_Gumshoe's heart rose, though he was sure Maggey was lying. He knew he was homely. His body was big, angular, and clumsy, his hands were calloused, and he hadn't shaved since that morning. He was well-muscled—that was the one thing he was proud of, as he was diligent in working out during breaks—but still hairy and rough. His cock, at that point erect, bent sideways, though Maggey had assured him countless times before that she could care less and could even use that characteristic to their advantage. She had said that she would benefit greatly if he'd trim downstairs, as he had what she called a 'forest' of black, wiry hair, and she got sick of picking it out of her permanent retainer. He had laughed in spite of himself at that; he had braces in the past too. It was another aspect they had in common. He had said turnabout is fair play (a saying he had gotten from Mr. Edgeworth), and she had laughed at that and thrown a pillow at him. They obliged each other; it had become a running joke, a point of inspection, and a mutually-beneficial one at that._

His mind wandered to eating Maggey out, something he had come to enjoy immensely and had become quite good at, if he said so himself (no small thanks to help files on the internet). He remembered holding her jerking hips in his hands, the curves fitting well into his palms, licking at her juices, glancing up through his lashes while he sucked on her clit to see her writhe with her head thrown back, eyes closed, moaning softly. He would nuzzle her clit with his nose while lapping at her opening; this made her thrash, drove her insane, drove her to orgasm quickly. He could time how long he had to work by conserving this move; he had playing Maggey's body down to an art. He could get her off very quickly at work, even, something they had taken to doing on long shifts when nobody was around, sitting on tables and chairs in storage closets or evidence rooms. He was glad she wore the policewoman's uniform with a skirt as opposed to trousers, as it was easy to slip her panties down her thighs, draw her slim skirt over her hips. He'd sometimes prefer to finger her so he could kiss her, whisper to her, hold her, but he'd gotten somewhat gun-shy and neurotic about washing his hands beforehand after Maggey had gotten a UTI, and was livid with him for a good few days. There had been no incidents since, and he had gotten amazingly adept at getting his thumb and fingers at just the right angles to drive her wild, make her rise up on her hips toward him, moan and gasp loudly enough that he had to cover her mouth with his so they wouldn't get nailed—he could rub her clit and the walnut-rough spot just inside her, the place that made her jerk with ecstasy—

He subconsciously curled his fingers as though around Maggey, and his fingertips brushed the rough weave of Wright's blanket. He remembered for a moment where he was, but his mind quickly flitted back into semi-consciousness.

And, of course, before or after, Maggey obliged him in turn. His eyes fluttered into the back of his head with the memory, and his hand strayed down inside his pants. He hadn't realized he was already this hard, and he smoothed pre-cum around his head with his thumb. It was rough, so unlike Maggey's hands, calloused though hers were from training. Her hands were soft and warm, her strong tongue like velvet, it was deliciously hot inside her mouth—and she always paid attention to the area just under his head, what did she call it, f-something?—which sent spasms of pleasure up his back so strong he had to fight not to thrust hard into her mouth. It was more risky for her to jerk him off for any sustained period of time, as much as he loved to see her eyes and kiss her, because things could get very messy very quickly, and if they were at work fifteen seconds could be the difference between easy escape and getting caught.

_Despite his misgivings, Gumshoe smiled softly and reached out across the bedspread, and Maggey placed her fingertips on the back of his hand, smiling back at him. Her delicate fingers were dwarfed by his. _

"_What are you thinking right now?"_

_Gumshoe thought for a moment. "You're beautiful," he said finally. "I love you. And I'm so glad you're back on the force, so I can see you every day. You're the most important thing in my life."_

"_I love you, too."_

_Her smile turned into a smirk, and Gumshoe's insides lurched pleasurably as though coursing with molten lead._

_--_

The pale morning light was already too bright and hot for Phoenix's liking.

Gumshoe was still sprawled out asleep on the couch after Phoenix had seen Trucy off to school. He sat down on the edge of the couch and started the coffee machine beside him, watching the detective tiredly. Gumshoe had twisted himself into an odd heap with half the blanket falling off his large frame, and he was so tall that his legs dangled off the armrest just below his knees. He had his ear-buds in his ears, chord snaking to some pocket in his jacket; the music was faintly audible at this range. Phoenix leaned down to better hear, and winced at Gumshoe's stale, alcohol-shot breath.

_Though I see  
The danger there  
If there's a chance for me  
Then I don't care_

Phoenix laughed quietly and shook his head. He carefully removed Gumshoe's earbuds, and Sinatra was loud for the few moments before Phoenix frisked Gumshoe for his mp3 player to turn it off. He pressed the 'back' button with his thumb and noted that, unsurprisingly, Gumshoe had been looping a playlist called 'Maggey'. He smiled, held the 'power' key until the player powered off, and wound the headphone chord lengthwise around before setting it on the coffee table. Gumshoe was going to be hung over; he would bet on that easily. Loud music would not wake him up in a good mood.

The coffee was finished; Phoenix poured some into a mug and took a deep draught. Ever since he had to deal with Godot, he had taken to trying coffee black, and found that after a while it had grown on him. In his half-asleep state, staring into the black pool in his cup, his mind often drifted back to that trial, that great victory before his life went to hell, and he felt sorry for the man with all the loose threads of that year wrapped around his fist.

His mind inevitably drifted to Mia, harbingered by the sheer pain he saw through Godot's goggles, and he gripped his face, dragging his fingertips over his eyes, seeing flashes with the pressure. There was nothing he could have done. He had finally come to peace with this, but damned if he didn't still wish he could have.

"Excuse me?"

The voice was coming through the intercom's. A woman's. Phoenix leaned over backward, dangerously close to knocking over the coffee stand, and held down the square manila button next to the speaker.

"Wright Anything Agency. If you're a reporter, go fuck yourself."

"Mr. Wright? It's Maggey Byrde."

"…Maggey?"

"Yeah. Is Rick… Detective Gumshoe there? He's not at his house. He said he was going to go talk to you last night."

"Yeah, he's here. Hold on. I'll come let you up."

Phoenix lifted his finger off the intercom and looked down at himself. He was stripped to the waist, dressed in naught but sweatpants, and he hadn't shaved in three days. His hair looked like hell. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair a few times before running downstairs and opening the front door.

"Well, I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it myself." Phoenix looked Maggey up and down. Her eyes had widened upon seeing that Phoenix was half-naked, and she was looking him up and down—not disapprovingly, Phoenix noted with a surge of pride. He smiled and gave her a hug anyway. "Officer Byrde once again."

"Soon to be Detective Byrde, hopefully."

"Ah, congratulations!"

Phoenix stood aside to allow Maggey indoors, and closed the door behind her.

"Thank you." She placed her hand on her stomach. "Though this doesn't come at the best time for that."

"Well, I think I should add 'babysitting' to the list of talents we have at the Wright Talent Agency."

"So, Rick already told you, huh?"

"Yeah." Phoenix ran his fingers through his hair again and started up the stairs, Maggey following him. "What he didn't tell me was what you planned to do, as he himself didn't know."

Maggey stopped briefly, gripping the handrail and biting her lower lip. Phoenix paused, glancing over his shoulder.

"…Maggey… you do have to decide soon."

"I'm keeping it."

Phoenix took a silent breath, wanting to ask her if this was a good time, if she was sure, but the determined look in her eyes caught the words in his throat. He sighed and continued up the stairs.

"You went to Kurain, didn't you?"

"Yeah." Maggey continued up the stairs after him. "I talked… to my mom. It really helped me work some things out."

"And what does she think?"

"She thinks I'm an idiot for trusting that herbal birth control, but she said that if I love Rick, and he loves me, and he's willing to… you know, work through all the hard stuff that comes with kids… everything will be all right."

_If. If. But damned if they aren't both stubborn as hell. And if it's true that oblivious fools are able to do the impossible because they aren't aware it's impossible, by their powers combined should be able to do anything._

"Maya and Pearl are doing just fine," said Maggey. "They want to come down and visit soon."

"That would be awesome."

Phoenix had to shove aside a hula hoop that had fallen across the door to get into the room. Maggey stood in the doorway with a vaguely horrified expression as Phoenix jumped and picked his way across the collection of junk in his lobby to Gumshoe's couch.

"You raise your daughter in this environment?"

Phoenix laughed. "Do you know how much of this junk is hers?"

"You're still teaching her to be a slob!"

"She doesn't need any teaching; trust me." Phoenix reached the coffee stand and held out his mug. "Coffee? We do have sugar and cream."

"Uh… sure."

Phoenix started sifting around for a spare—_clean_—mug while Maggey picked her way gingerly toward the couch and sat next to Gumshoe's legs. She leaned down close to his face as though to kiss him, and suddenly straightened, sighing.

"How drunk is he?"

"Extremely." He offered her the character mug of cream-sugar-coffee. "I hope you don't mind the _Pink Princess_ mug."

"It's fine. Thanks."

Maggey took a careful sip and set the mug on a cleared edge of the coffee table. Gumshoe was still snoring; she elbowed him in the ribs, but he did not respond. She sighed and took another drink of coffee.

"Well, at least he's sleeping."

"Did you get any sleep last night?"

Maggey shook her head. Phoenix plucked the mug from her hands mid-sip and gulped the entire mug himself. Maggey gaped, hands still curled as though holding the cup.

"…hey--!"

"I'll give you something else to drink, but you're going to bed."

"Then why did you give me coffee in the first place?"

"Because I'm tired and not thinking either." Phoenix walked toward his office with the Pink Princess mug dangling off his finger. "I think we only have grape Kool-Aid; I'm afraid I am the sort of parent who gives his kids the 'purple stuff'."

"…what?"

"Before your time."

Phoenix found nothing in the mini-fridge but a McDonald's foil-top cup of orange juice, which Maggey accepted. Phoenix stretched and popped his back loudly, yawning.

"Well, you've got to start taking really good care of your health until the baby is born. That means sleep and food. Folic acid and all that stuff."

Maggey checked her watch. "I was supposed to be at the station two hours ago. So was Rick."

"Call in sick."

"We can't both call in sick on the same day!"

"Yes, you can." Phoenix picked up his mug and took a deep drink. "If you're in close contact with one another, and one of you is sick, the other will probably get sick too."

"That's the thing. We haven't really told anybody at the precinct that we're… you know."

Phoenix shrugged. "You're co-workers. Not all diseases are saliva-or-sexually-transmitted."

"Objection." Maggey poked the tip of Phoenix's nose with her forefinger. "We work on opposite sides of the building, and we're assigned different cases lately. And nobody else is sick."

Phoenix laughed and shook his head. "All right, fine. But you're still calling in sick. Maya would kick my ass if she found out I let you go to work today. And so would Trucy."

"And so would Rick, probably."

"Gumshoe? Probably."

Maggey sighed and took a deep drink of orange juice. "I hope he doesn't start to do the Guy Thing and be protective of me just because I'm pregnant. I can still take care of myself."

"If he does, it's only because he loves you. It's not that he doesn't respect you. He's… the opposite. He worships you. It's just something guys are programmed to do to keep their genes going."

"You're such a romantic, Mr. Wright."

"I know." Phoenix rubbed Maggey's shoulder. "I know you can take care of yourself, and I know you'll do a fine job. You're going to be a wonderful mother."

Maggey smiled and saluted. "I'll be the best mother and detective you've ever seen; just you wait!"

"You're…" Phoenix paused, carefully placing his words in order. "…sure this is a good idea right now?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Phoenix opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it. Maggey's expression clearly indicated that she was dead-set on making this work, regardless of the very realistic obstacles inherent in this situation. Her eyes carried the force of her stubbornness.

They burned.

"I'm not afraid." Maggey's voice was calm, level.

'_Fools rush in where wise men never go', huh._

Phoenix sighed and nodded. "Well, one thing at a time. Your priority right _now_ is to get some rest."

"I know, I know." She set her juice down and fished in her skirt pocket. "All right, you win." She pulled out her cell phone. "I'm exhausted anyway."

--

Maggey was sick the next morning.

Gumshoe was working on a report at his cubicle across the office when he saw Maggey suddenly stand up at her desk and walk briskly toward the women's restroom, hand over her mouth. He stared at the closed door, brows knit, unsure of what to do. He knew morning sickness was normal, and that in the end, Maggey would be just fine, if not in a foul mood, but he ached at the thought of her feeling any discomfort or pain. He tried to focus on the last details of his report, but found himself glancing at the restroom door every two seconds, so he finally set his pen down and walked to the break room. Damned if he knew what was best to give a woman for morning sickness—he walked back to his cubicle and searched 'morning sickness' on the internet, and upon its advice, returned to the break room to make Maggey ginger tea with cut lemon. He tried to find crackers, as that was recommended as well, but could only find pretzels, which he assumed would have to do.

Maggey was back at her cubicle with her head on her desk when Gumshoe arrived. He set the tea and bag of pretzels beside her and pulled up a vacant chair, rubbing her shoulders. Her muscles were in knots.

"I'm going to kill you," she said.

"I know." He sighed. "I'm sorry. If I could take this pain on myself, I would."

Maggey flicked Gumshoe's hand. "No, you wouldn't." She looked up at the food he had brought. "What's this?"

"Ginger tea with lemon. Apparently ginger and lemon and tea are good for morning sickness, so by their powers combined they should be super." He paused. "And they're out of crackers."

He kept rubbing Maggey's shoulders, waiting for her to try the tea before it cooled off, but she kept her forehead on the desk. He sighed and moved his fingertips up to the back of her neck, rubbing at the knots he found there.

"Apparently the smell of fresh lemons is good, too. I was going to find some lemon-scented Lysol and bring it over here to spray around, but I couldn't find any."

Maggey suddenly stood up, knocking Gumshoe's hands off, muttering an "Excuse me", and ran toward the restroom again. Gumshoe sighed heavily and put his hands in his lap, watching the women's restroom with worry.

"Have you told the chief yet?"

Gumshoe looked up. Gemini, one of Maggey's closest friends on the force, was leaning around her cubicle and arching her eyebrows at Gumshoe knowingly.

"No." He looked down at his hands for a moment before looking up through his lashes guiltily. "It is, uh… that obvious?"

Gemini gave him a flat look. Gumshoe sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"I think she's really mad at me."

"Oh, I'm sure she _hates_ you right about now."

Gumshoe sighed heavily and stared down at his hands. He heard Gemini sigh exasperatedly and wheel her chair further back toward him.

"Dick—"

"—I really hate that name—"

"—Richard, whatever, Gumshoe—"

"—Rick is fine—"

"—_Rick_, fine. Look. Maggey is crazy about you. She's just in a really bad mood because she feels bad. It's just like the UTI thing."

Gumshoe looked up sharply. "You _knew_ about that?"

"We have girl talk." Gumshoe felt blood rush to his face; he wondered what the hell else 'girl talk' they had had about him. Gemini waved her hand dismissively. "Nothing bad. Look, the point is she loves you. And if you want to know a secret—" She looked toward the restroom. "—she's wondering why you haven't asked her to marry you."

Gumshoe stared back in shock. "…really?"

"And now's as good a time as any, don't you think?"

"But—" Gumshoe scooted his chair closer to Gemini and leaned in. "—won't the chief flip out?"

Gemini shrugged. "Look, if he hasn't figured it out by now, like the entire precinct, he will."

Gumshoe heard a chair settle behind him; Maggey was sitting back down, picking up the teacup. She was sheet-white and clammy. He scooted backwards toward her and stroked her hair, mumbling soothingly. She looked on the verge of tears. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and kissed her on the temple, still smoothing her mussed hair. She maneuvered the teacup over his arms and inhaled deeply, sighing.

"Maggey-Birdie, have you been to the doctor yet?" Gemini had wheeled closer to them.

Maggey shook her head slowly. "Once. I'm going again next week. I think I should tell the chief myself first. Since I've already had one checkup to confirm…"

"Speaking of which."

Gemini nodded over the cubicles toward the center of the station; the chief was walking over at that moment. Gumshoe tensed up, wondering whether he should drop Maggey and crawl under the desk, or try to act nonchalant and come up with an excuse for why he wasn't working.

Confirming Gumshoe's fears, the chief stopped right next to them. He realized he had frozen with his arms around Maggey, and swallowed. Now that he thought about it, Gemini was right; this was so obvious you'd have to be an idiot not to realize—

"Gumshoe. Byrde."

Gumshoe and Maggey stood up clumsily and saluted, saying "Yes, sir?" in unison. Gumshoe glanced to the side; Maggey was shaking slightly, and a drop of sweat rolled down from her hair, but she stood straight-shouldered and proud. Gumshoe's heart welled.

"I need to see you both in my office." His eyes softened as he looked at Maggey. "At ease. And you may bring your tea."

The chief's office was Spartan, familiar, and thankfully with two plush chairs on the visitors' side of the desk so both Gumshoe and Maggey could sit down. The chief nodded for them to take a seat before sitting down himself in his swivel chair. He folded his fingers over his mouth pensively, then exhaled through his nose.

"First of all, I'd like to congratulate you both."

Gumshoe and Maggey muttered a thanks. Gumshoe was staring at his hands; he was sure they were about to get fired.

"Hold it!" Gumshoe stood suddenly, pointing at the chief. "What are you congratulating us on? As far as I'm concerned, I'm not aware of anything to be congratulated for!"

Silence. Maggey hissed, "_Rick_—"

"Gumshoe, dammit, how dumb do I look?" The chief rubbed between his eyes. "I know you guys have been dating for quite some time now, and I know Officer Byrde is pregnant."

Gumshoe lowered his hand slowly. "…and you didn't fire us?"

"If I haven't fired you by now, you oaf, I don't see why I would over this. Sit _down_."

Gumshoe collapsed into his chair. Maggey was clenching her fists in her lap. The chief sat back in his chair and looked from Gumshoe to Maggey carefully.

"Well, Officer Byrde, have you been going to the doctor regularly? You've got to keep healthy for your sake and the child's."

"I—" Maggey looked down at her hands, glancing up at the chief intermittently. "—once. To confirm the pregnancy. About a month ago. I have an appointment for next week."

"And you're not going to terminate?"

Maggey's mouth firmed into a line. She shook her head. "No, sir."

The chief looked at Gumshoe. "And you're going to support her?"

"I can support myself!" Maggey yelled suddenly.

"I know, Byrde. But having two parents makes things infinitely more easy than one, on everybody."

"Yes." Gumshoe was surprised by the strength in his own voice. "I'm going to ask her to marry me, after I come up with a good way to surprise her."

Both the chief and Maggey stared at Gumshoe in disbelief. Gumshoe's eyes widened. _Fuckshitdammit—_ "Wait. Uh."

"Rick…" Maggey said quietly.

"Well, that's… uh… good news." The chief arched his eyebrows, half-cracking a smile. "Congratulations."

"I didn't say I accepted!" Maggey yelled.

Gumshoe felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach.

"Well… do you?" asked the chief.

"YES! Absolutely!"

Now Gumshoe felt like his stomach had fallen out of his body. He settled back in his chair heavily, a huge smile cracking across his face.

"Well… uh, congratulations. Still." The chief pushed his glasses up his nose. "Now that's… uh… out of the way… we need to discuss your salary."

The kicked feeling was coming back.

"It's been… uh… cut again, sir?"

"Well." The chief pulled some papers toward himself and looked them over, then looked at Maggey and Gumshoe over his glasses. "You're getting a raise."

There was a dead silence. Gumshoe's ears were ringing.

"A… raise, sir?" _This can't be happening he had to have read that wrong—_

"Twenty percent, each of you."

"…_each_ of us?" Maggey squeaked.

"I didn't know pregnancy messed with your ears, Byrde; I said both of you."

"Why?" Gumshoe blurted.

The chief sighed. "Well… frankly, that's a good question. But you have been working here for quite some time, and… well… you try damn hard."

Gumshoe knit his brows; every time he had tried to say that he was _trying_ to do a good job, he was told _trying_ doesn't get a salary raised.

"And… I think we have a need for a detective after you finish your maternity leave, Officer Byrde."

Maggey was glowing. Gumshoe stood up suddenly and saluted her, grinning with pride.

"Congratulations, Officer!"

"Gumshoe, sit your ass down."

"That's fine, but on one condition," said Maggey. She pointed at Gumshoe. "You have to give him more time off so somebody can help me take care of the kids!"

The chief nodded. "We can look into that. And HR can help you find childcare."

"Thank you, sir!"

"You've had a good word put in for you." The chief tapped the pile of papers in front of him vertically, evening them out, and set them back on the table. The look on his face was unfathomable. "You have a friend who cares about you."

Gumshoe and Maggey exchanged puzzled looks. "…who?" Gumshoe finally asked.

"Damned if I know, but the order came from the district attorney's office."

--

"Thank you, Miles."

Edgeworth shrugged. Phoenix smiled at the videophone and leaned on his hand. It was noon in Prague, and Edgeworth was sitting in a café on his lunch break, stunning as always in a cravat and vest. More than anything, Phoenix wished he was sitting with him, enjoying the cool air and the stunning architecture. A breeze teased the tips of Miles' hair; Phoenix knew that sitting downwind from him, he would be able to smell his cologne, hinted with the unique touch the chemistry of Miles' skin gave the scent. It made his hand jerk reflexively under the table; the thought made him want to bury his nose in the crook of Miles' neck, interlace his fingers with his own. He had kept one of Miles' shirts from the last time Miles was here, would inhale deeply of it, but the cologne along the collar had gone stale, had lost the freshness of skin.

Phoenix's resolve to visit Miles in Europe strengthened. They had been planning an meeting for quite some time, but Miles kept being scheduled for conferences and shuttled around the continent.

"It's no problem. I feel sorry for that poor child being raised by those clods."

"You're such a sweetheart."

Miles shrugged and pushed his glasses up his nose, smiling in spite of himself. He took a sip of his tea. Phoenix stared at his lips and envied the teacup; it had been far too long since he had tasted them.

"Trucy says hi, by the way."

"Ah, well, tell her I say hello."

"She wants souvenirs from every town you visit. Preferably magic-related, of course."

"We'll have to see about that." Miles checked his watch. "Oh, I'm almost due for a meeting. I'll have to call you back later before you go card sharking."

"How much longer do you have in Europe?"

Miles looked up at the camera on his computer, furrowing his eyes. Phoenix sighed; he knew he shouldn't bug Miles so much, that he was trying his hardest to get back to the States, but the question kept slipping out. He knew it was magical thinking to assume asking more would hasten Miles' return.

"Not long," he said quietly. His eyes softened. "I promise. I love you, Wright."

Phoenix kissed his fingers and pressed them against the camera. "I love you, Miles. I'll talk to you later."


	3. Memory 02: Nothing Else Matters

**Memory 02: Nothing Else Matters**

Somebody was banging on Phoenix's office door.

Phoenix sat up straight and groped for the volume control on his computer. He turned the music down, but kept his fingers on the dial. If it was Miles crossing the two-foot niche separating their offices just to tell him to turn it the hell down _again_, he was going to crank Guns n' Roses as high as his speakers could physically go.

"Come in!"

The door opened halfway.

"Professor Wright?"

It was a woman's voice. Phoenix turned the music down further and sat back in his chair.

"Yeah. Come in."

The young woman slid inside, closing the door behind her. She was dressed in Victorian-steampunk, with knee-length knickers, a vest, a brooch, and brass goggles holding her hair back like a headband. Phoenix hoped that she was not one of his students; he had never seen her before, and she looked far from forgettable.

"Hi, Professor. I'm Victoria Clockwork; I emailed you about an interview on the jurist system."

"Ah!" Phoenix snapped and pointed. "That's right. Ms. Clockwork. Please, have a seat." She did. "You said you're a PhD candidate in history?"

"History and evolution of social systems, yeah."

Phoenix laughed nervously. "Sounds well beyond me."

"I doubt it."

Clockwork was winding up a small clockwork cat; when she released it, it took a few steps forward, and meowed, sitting on its brass haunches. Its eyes were glowing green. Phoenix furrowed his eyebrows.

"Uh…"

"Oh, Clover here is going to record our conversation, if that's all right with you."

"Uh. Sure, of course."

"Excellent."

She stroked Clover's back. It meowed again, and its eyes glowed red. Clockwork sat back and pressed a few buttons on her watch—fabricated with brass-and-silver wheels—and a hologram-sheet of notes came up.

"All right." She cleared her throat. "Interview with Professor Phoenix Wright, Ivy Law School." Phoenix stared blankly. "Now, when you first entered university, the trial-by-jury system was just being abolished in the United States, correct?"

"Yes."

"And you were an amazingly successful attorney working within the confines of the new system."

"Uh…" Phoenix scratched the back of his head. "…I guess."

"What inspired you to reinstate the jurist system?"

Phoenix breathed out heavily and sat back, folding his hands behind his head. "Wow. Getting right to the meat of things, aren't you?"

"Take your time if you need a moment."

"…well." Phoenix thought for a moment. "…it was sort of a long time in coming. A long process. A… lot of people helped contribute to that realization." He scratched the back of his head again. "I was not the only person who worked on the jurist system. Professor Edgeworth across the hall was an immeasurable help—"

"Oh, yeah. I have an interview scheduled with him tomorrow."

"Oh, well." Phoenix laughed nervously. "He can give you all the gory details on my personal life if you ask for them. He'd probably give them with relish."

"It seems to take an awful lot of faith in humanity to want to re-instate a system hinging on human judgment and not purely concrete evidence."

"…true." Phoenix looked up at the ceiling, thought. "…well… that's… a process that started… I don't know… in elementary school, I guess. It's one of those 'lifelong journey' things."

"True, but when did you start to apply that to law?" Clockwork paused. "I know it's kind of a bullshit question."

Phoenix snorted.

"It's fine. Well… I had a lot of cases where the evidence-only system of law was… a hindrance, I guess you could say. I could dig up those case files if you want. They're public domain now."

"If I may ask, didn't your disbarment occur because of a trial like that? You reinstated the system while you were still disbarred."

"Aaah. Yes. That is a long story." Phoenix looked at his desktop clock. "…how much time do you have?"

"I have no other engagements for the rest of the day."

"Neither do I." Phoenix sat back in his chair. "Well. I could try to explain to you everything that went through my head during that period, but it would lose a lot of its… impact, I guess."

"I understand."

It was a song that often came to mind. He had listened to it in times of desperation, when he needed to remember Edgeworth's comforting embrace, to remember him rushing to his aid from halfway around the world.

It put things in perspective then. It still did not fail to now.

_So close, no matter how far  
Couldn't be much more from the heart  
Forever trusting who we are  
And nothing else matters_

He considered asking Clockwork if she had heard of Metallica, but he smirked to himself in amusement. They were probably crusty elevator music to her generation, same as Guns N' Roses must have sounded to her on her approach.

_God, I'm old._

"I should have lost my faith in humanity. Become jaded. Cynical. That's what a lot of people thought had happened." He smiled to himself. "I really think that's what would have happened if I didn't have the people standing beside me that I did. I don't know if I'd have had the courage to keep on trusting in people without the love from those who mean the most to me, back then."

Clockwork nodded, furrowing her brows. Clover was wagging its brass-jointed tail lazily across the desktop.

"Here." Phoenix took a drink of coffee from his thermos. "Might as well start at the beginning."

* * *

All things considered, Edgeworth was having a good night. His only reserve was that he was unable to get a hold of Wright, but he assumed that his trial had run long and that he would call soon to give him an update.

He rubbed Pess between the ears, and she made a sleepy, content noise in the back of her throat. She was asleep with her chin resting on Edgeworth's stomach, and Edgeworth was sitting up in bed with his laptop on a cushioned table resting across his thighs. It was two AM in Brussels, and the laptop cast the only light in the otherwise dark room. He took his mug of tea from the bedside table and took a deep drink, eyes still on the monitor over the rim of the cup.

He was returning to California next week for a visit. His flight plans were secured, as were lodgings for Pess, and he had secured his leave with the International Law Office at the European Union. Phoenix was eagerly awaiting his return, already planning all the things they wanted to do—though he had no interest in doing anything touristy in the LA area; he'd seen it all a billion times—and presenting lists of things that Maya and Pearl wanted to do in addition. The girls were coming down from Kurain part of the time, though he had made sure Phoenix secured them ample time alone.

Alone, yes. He smiled to himself, still unconsciously scratching Pess's head. During his lonelier nights he had begun a habit of comforting himself researching sexual techniques, positions, toys, online; there was a shocking archive of information ranging from the ancient and classical lore of the _Kama Sutra_, Japan, Greece, to the New Age Tantra popular in the late 1990's, to the current cyberpunk retro-futuristic mantras of mind-melding techniques and 'cerebral sex'. He was keeping a folder of the most intriguing information, earmarking and memorizing the most tantalizing, the most enthralling. Cataloging the things he wanted to do with Phoenix helped abate the loneliness; imagining himself _surprising Phoenix with sudden adept knowledge, imagining the looks of rapture and delight—_

He tapped his fingertips on the laptop table, furrowing his eyebrows. This was not the time to get aroused, not when he had work to finish and a laptop on his crotch and Pess asleep on his stomach. He sighed and maximized his PowerPoint window. He had a presentation tomorrow before the bureau; he had put off completing it too long.

He had finished formatting a graph when his cell phone rang. He grabbed the body and checked the caller ID eagerly; his heart sank in disappointment when he realized it was Detective Gumshoe. He sighed and fished the wireless earpiece out of his breast pocket, clipped it over the shell of his ear, and pressed the button on the hub.

"Miles Edgeworth."

"Mr. Edgeworth! Sir! It's Detective Gumshoe from the—"

"I know who you are."

"—is this a bad time? I really gotta talk to you, sir. Something… bad's happened. And I don't even know how it did—"

Edgeworth groaned quietly and rubbed between his eyes. This was not what he wanted right now, especially when Wright may be calling at any moment.

"Do you have any idea what time it is, Detective?"

"Uh… oh, yeah, there's a time change, isn't there?"

Edgeworth gave a flat, sour look to no-one in particular.

"I'm really sorry, sir. I really am. It's just—something really bad's happened to Mr. Wright again." Edgeworth sat up straight. "…and I don't know what to do."

"What happened?"

"He's been accused of forging evidence."

Something knotted in Edgeworth's stomach. His fingers tightened on Pess's scalp; Pess whined, picking up on her master's agitation. She looked up at him and shifted uneasily.

"So?" Edgeworth's voice came out steadier than he expected. "Lawyers accuse that of one another all the time. God knows it's happened to me. It probably won't hold up in court. Besides, this is Wright, for Christ's sake; he'll pull God-knows-what out of his ass soon enough. And he would never forge evidence. He's too damn honest for his own good. He's the archetype of The Fool."

"The what?"

"Never mind."

"But they've… got testimony, sir. Conclusive testimony. The judge threw the case out already."

Edgeworth realized that his tongue was dry. He wet it, moving his hand further down Pess's neck and clutching at her scruff. She nosed his leg and whined again.

"And he didn't just… turn it around like he usually does?"

"I… I guess not. I don't know, sir."

"This is ludicrous."

"His Bar Association hearing is tomorrow morning; there's no way you're going to get back here before it's over."

"_Already_?"

Edgeworth sat bolt upright. Pess whined and drew back, startled.

"What the—it usually takes _months_ before a hearing, and there's investigation—what the—"

"No idea, sir. But they seem hot to try this as soon as possible."

"Were you at the trial?"

"Yes." Gumshoe took a deep breath. "I… shit, I testified for the prosecution, as usual, sir. But I swear I didn't say nothin' that would get Mr. Wright nailed like this. It was… there was this evidence he presented; soon as he did it, Prosecutor Gavin jumped all over his ass, said 'Finally' like he was waitin' for something—"

_Gavin?_ "Gavin's a defense attorney."

"Not Kristoph, sir. Klavier. His younger brother."

Edgeworth furrowed his eyebrows; he vaguely remembered hearing about Klavier Gavin, now that he thought about it, but he did not realize he was Stateside already.

"Seventeen years old, German, already a prosecutor," Gumshoe continued, when Edgeworth did not respond. "The rock star. He graduated real early, just jointed the DA's office."

"This is outrageous." Edgeworth rubbed his forefinger and thumb between his eyes again, ran his fingers through his hair. "It's so blatantly obvious this is a setup. As soon as Wright presents that evidence, he's jumped on? Please. It's almost insulting that nobody's pointed this out."

"Maybe they don't want to, sir."

"Maybe you're exactly right. Do you know who's heading the Bar Association these days?"

"I think it's _Kristoph_ Gavin, sir."

Edgeworth swore loudly. Pess jumped off the bed and hunched down in the corner of the room. He made a half-hearted attempt to comfort her, to call her back, but she just stared at him warily, thumping the wall with her tail.

"Is that bad, sir?"

"I've faced him in court several times. I don't trust that bastard."

"Well, I don't see what he'd have against Mr. Wright. He or his brother, sir. This is the first time Mr. Wright's faced Klavier in court."

"God knows. Probably some old grudge everybody but he has forgotten about."

"Yeah."

There was a silence. Edgeworth was rubbing between his eyes again, feeling a tension headache coming on. Pess whined softly. Gumshoe finally cleared his throat.

"So… you're coming back, sir?"

Edgeworth set his laptop-desk beside him on the bed, stood, and started digging through his drawers for clothes and throwing them onto the bed. Boxers, socks. Gumshoe continued speaking.

"You won't make it for the hearing, sir. It's just impossible; it's first thing tomorrow morning."

Edgeworth moved up one drawer. Folded shirts. He tossed a few into a stack next to his underwear.

"I'm still coming out. This is ludicrous."

_A setup. _He opened the top drawer, grabbed a few cravats, a set of cufflinks, slammed it shut. _Immediate trap, waiting for him to use evidence, immediate hearing. Almost like they were all waiting. This is ridiculous. _

He moved to the closet, dug through pants and jackets. Gumshoe's hesitant silence was palpable even through the earpiece.

"You really care about Mr. Wright, don't you?"

Edgeworth paused, hand still flat against a pair of trousers—

_Never opened myself this way  
Life is ours, we live it our way  
All these words I don't just say_

—stared into the closet. Gumshoe cleared his throat.

"Sir?"

"Hold off that hearing as long as you can." Edgeworth grabbed a few pairs of trousers and a few jackets, tossed them onto the bed, and made his way toward the bathroom. "I'm taking the next flight back to LA."

"Aren't those usually booked months in advance, sir?"

"I'll make it happen." Travel bag of deodorant, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss. Already waiting for him under his sink. He checked it to make sure it was full, and tossed it onto the bed through the door. Grabbed his electric razor and hairbrush, walked out and set those on the bed by hand. He wrestled his suitcase out of his closet.

"All right, sir."

"And don't tell anybody at the DA's office I'm coming back; if they want to put Wright away, they'll hurry the hearing up even more."

"Understood, sir."

Edgeworth pressed the button on his earpiece to disconnect the call. He sighed and threw it onto his bed next to his things. Pess was hunched in the corner, making his agitation her own. He stooped to pet her briefly, murmuring soothingly to her, though he stared at the wall above her head, eyes hard.

_Gavin. What the hell are you playing at, you bastard?_

Pess whined, and he looked down at her. He sighed and gave her a last pet before straightening and going to his bedside table for his phone.

"I'm afraid you're going to the kennel a little earlier than we thought, girl."

* * *

There were no direct flights from Brussels International to LAX. Edgeworth was used to going through JFK in New York to get back to Los Angeles, and he usually took the inconvenience in stoic stride, but the idea of having to stop seemed unbearable now. He had negotiated with a ticketing agent, white-knuckled and clutching the counter, for only twenty minutes before securing the 10 AM to JFK, but to him it seemed to take precious hours. She said that he would have a three hour layover, but it was still the fastest she could get him to Los Angeles on such short notice. He had snapped a 'fine', realizing that he was being cruel to a blameless messenger, but was too harried to care. He checked his bag and left for the security line, irritated that he could secure no faster methods of transport as he had when Wright had gotten his stupid ass in trouble three months earlier.

Once at the gate he sent an email to the EU Law conference coordinator apologizing for his abrupt absence, and another to his secretary asking that she explain his week-earlier absence to all relevant parties. It was only 4 AM; he finally had time to call Phoenix, now that his passage was secured.

He answered neither his video-phone on his laptop, nor his cell phone. Edgeworth swore quietly and clutched his phone on his knee, tapping it nervously with his forefinger. He knew he looked a mess. He had not taken the time to shave, his hair was flat without his usual grooming ritual—those peaks in his bangs came with gel—and he had hastily thrown on a pair of black slacks and a black vest over a white shirt. He felt naked without a cravat or at least a necktie holding his collar closed.

He finally decided to give himself a rudimentary groom in the men's room, and found that after shaving, brushing his hair, and washing his face, he felt somewhat calmer. He stared at his reflection and took a deep breath. This was not going to happen to Phoenix. He was not going to allow it.

The flight was uneventful, though uncomfortable. Edgeworth was stuck in coach, dead-center row between a rather large man and a petit woman who was already out cold, and he found it impossible to fold his long legs in such a way that he could sleep comfortably. He gave up after an hour of fitful attempts, envying the woman her mobility, pulled out his laptop, and accessed the Los Angeles District Attorney's server through the airplane wi-fi. He read the transcript of _Enigmar v. California_ carefully, heart swelling with pride every time the dialogue noted as coming from DEFENSE revealed a brilliant contradiction, or noted a paradox nobody else would address. His fingers tightened over the travel mouse when he reached the portion at which the trial stopped, and was linked to a hearing between Phoenix Wright, Klavier Gavin, and the presiding judge.

The link gave him a 404. He cursed, and the man next to him glanced sidelong momentarily. He suspected Kristoph Gavin had put a hold on this transcript, or had at least encouraged the stenographer to place updating this page on the lower end of the priority list.

Edgeworth clicked back to the trial transcript, and read through it once again, memorizing every detail. He looked through the evidence, especially the piece marked 'forged'. He had arched his eyebrows when it was noted that the defendant had literally 'disappeared' at the end of the trial, but left speculating on that point to later. He logged on to a United States law database and combed every law he recalled had to do with disbarment and forging of evidence. He was halfway through collecting meticulous notes when the captain announced that they were about to land, and he was almost disappointed by their arrival, as he would have to interrupt the flow of his thoughts by shutting his laptop down.

By the time he had worked through the three-hour layover at JFK and four-hour flight to LAX, he had a venerable body of laws, citations, and objections of his own—but no conclusive evidence in Wright's favor. He was either going to have to access that webpage, or talk to Wright himself. He was starting to worry about Wright; he had not gotten a hold of him during his layover, and he had snuck a text message during the intercontinental flight to no response.

It was the middle of the afternoon in California by the time he had collected his baggage at LAX. If what Gumshoe had said was accurate, Phoenix's hearing was over by now. On the upside, however, Phoenix had finally left him one short message: "_I'm at my apartment._" It was as much an invitation as a plea. It also meant he hadn't killed himself.

Phoenix's apartment was relatively close to LAX, within biking distance of the courthouse, as was required by his lack of a car. Edgeworth took a courtesy shuttle to the nearby garage where he had stored his car, and managed to avoid traffic on the 105 all the way to his exit. He pulled into the spot that would be Phoenix's, if he had a car, and dragged his suitcase and briefcase up the stairs, maneuvering on autopilot, not even thinking of the building numbers at this point. He fished the key to Wright's apartment out of his pocket and carefully opened the door. The familiar smell that was Phoenix's living room—Febreeze masking unwashed laundry and an indescribable essence that was strongly _Wright_—drafted out, mingling with the air as the door swung open.

He heard the shower running. Edgeworth carefully closed the door behind him and locked it, then maneuvered through the horridly messing living room to the bedroom. He set his suitcase and briefcase next to the bed. He sat on the familiar cheap memory-foam mattress and began to untie his shoes and remove his socks. He stopped just shy of removing his vest, fingers playing over the buttons. He did not know if Phoenix wanted to be suddenly accosted in the shower, or if he needed a moment to be alone. He decided to leave it be for now and collapsed back onto the bed. He was just now realizing how exhausted he was; he had not slept in almost thirty-six hours by this point. Now that he was in Phoenix's apartment, the nervous energy that had driven him forward and kept him awake during his trip was gone.

He did not know how long he dozed in a lucid state, but when the shower turned off, he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a moment before sitting up, resting back on his hands. After a few agonizing minutes Phoenix finally emerged from the bathroom, hair wet and falling down around his face, a towel around his waist. He stopped when he saw Edgeworth, and it took a moment for realization to settle in his eyes. Edgeworth smiled at him tiredly, but he knew his own smile was no more convincing.

Phoenix looked like hell. His eyes were red and raw, and despite having just exited a shower, his face was drawn and pale, gaunt. Edgeworth had heard that it was possible for a man to appear to have aged overnight. He had not understood the weight or validity of that statement until now.

"Miles."

Edgeworth stood. Phoenix closed his eyes hard, blinked rapidly, obviously trying to hold back tears. Edgeworth waited to see if he was going to make any moves, shifting his weight to his front foot in anticipation of stepping forward himself if Phoenix did not.

"I decided to come a little early. Hope you don't mind."

Phoenix's lip was quivering again. He swallowed, firmed his jaw, and shook his head. His brows furrowed with the effort.

"I'm…" Phoenix swallowed, wetting his tongue. He took a shaking breath. "…no. No. No."

He crossed the distance between them and grabbed Miles, one arm across his back gripping his shoulder, the other around his waist. He buried his face in Miles' shoulder and took another breath that wracked his own shoulders. He knotted his fingers in Miles' shirt in a vain attempt to grasp some semblance of control over himself. The shirt seams strained, but Miles just sighed and held Phoenix, stroking his hair and kissing the top of his head. He murmured soothingly, "It's okay"s and "I'm here"s and shushing noises void of content but full of concern and the abstract desire to make everything all right.

Miles finally excused himself to take a quick shower, promising that they could talk in a few minutes. Phoenix nodded and squeezed his hand—hard—before letting go, and smiled ruefully over his shoulder. He waved slightly with his fingertips, sighed, and turned toward the bed.

Thankfully it did not take the usual five minutes for Phoenix's shower to warm up, though Edgeworth did have to dig through several empty bottles of shampoo and body scrub before he found bottles with enough soap left for a wash. It was strangely intimate and enveloping to wash with the soaps Phoenix usually used, Old Spice and some generic shampoo for thick, oily hair. He recalled being told that smell is the sense most intimately linked to emotion and memory, that there are more olfactory genes in the human genome than genes for any other physical sense. The smell ingrained the feeling that he really was _here_, in Los Angeles, with Phoenix, more than sight or any other sense alone. It was as though time had folded in on itself, creating a loop and joining the last time he had been here to this instance, omitting all the time that he had spent away from this place. It truly felt as though he had never left. The relaxation and surrealism inherent in this feeling, unfortunately, also made Edgeworth feel twice as exhausted, and his knees almost gave out under him in the shower. He pressed against the tile wall until the wave crested. He vigorously scrubbed the sweat and essence of airplane travel out of his skin and scalp, toweled off, brushed his teeth and shaved, and emerged in a towel and feeling considerably fresher and more relaxed.

Phoenix had drawn the blackout curtains over his windows, rendering the room blissfully dark and cool. He was curled up under the sheet with his back to Edgeworth. Miles carefully picked his way around the laundry and various junk on Phoenix's floor, unwrapped the towel around his waist, and folded it before dropping it lightly on top of his suitcase. He crawled into bed next to Phoenix, noting gladly that at least the sheets had been washed recently, and wrapped his arms around Phoenix's bare waist. Phoenix placed his hands over Miles' and interlaced their fingers, then drew Miles' hands to his shoulders, clutching Miles' arms crossed over his chest, hugging Miles' chest flush to his back. Miles sighed and rested his lips on Phoenix's shoulder. He was just now realizing how _utterly_ exhausted he was, and how sluggishly his brain was working. Phoenix was also limp with exhaustion—_everywhere_—which Miles found as a relief; he had zero energy for comfort sex, let alone staying awake much longer.

"Have you slept?"

Phoenix shook his head. "I was preparing for my hearing." His voice was strained, but quiet, oddly calm, as though relieved from finally being able to cry. "I… shit, Miles, they gave me no warning, I had no evidence, and they had that goddamn testimony—they lied. The witness lied. I had no proof."

"There has to be proof somewhere if it's a setup."

"I've lost jurisdiction to investigate at all anymore. They've crippled me as fast as possible. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am, gone. Done."

His voice was tapering off into sleep. Miles was relieved; he himself was exhausted. He kissed Phoenix on the back of the neck and nuzzled his cheek with his own.

"I'm going to help you fix this. I promise. There is absolutely no way they can get away with this; it's ludicrous, paper-thin." He sighed and rested his cheek against the side of Phoenix's neck. "But right now I think we both need to sleep."

"Mm, yeah."

Phoenix untangled his fingers from Miles' and turned around in his arms, looking into his eyes. Phoenix's eyes were half-lidded in exhaustion. He kissed Miles on the lips softly, then snuggled into the crook of his neck, wrapping his arms around Miles' waist.

"I'm glad you're here."

Miles smiled softly to himself over Phoenix's head, tracing nonsense designs on his back with his fingertips. Phoenix's chest was already rising and falling with the calm, automatic rhythm of sleep. Miles kissed Phoenix's forehead and shifted into a more comfortable position, mumbling that was glad he was here as well.

One minute later, Miles was fast asleep.

* * *

_And nothing else matters_

* * *

Phoenix was disoriented when he woke up. He was face-first in his pillow and sprawled awkwardly across the bed with his foot hanging over the side, ass-naked, and, according to his bedside clock, it was 11:52 PM. He stared at it a moment, brain still oriented relative to a dream that was fast fading from memory.

Reality finally came back to him. Miles. He turned around, half-terrified his return had been part of his dream, and Phoenix's heart rose when he saw Miles still fast asleep next to him. He smiled to himself. They always started out falling asleep in one another's arms, but at some point during the night would wind up sprawled across the bed in various odd, autonomous positions. Realistically two bodies folded up together got uncomfortably hot after a while, and sometimes, limbs would fall asleep.

Screw that. The air conditioner was on. Phoenix scooted closer to Miles and slid his arm under Miles' waist, snuggling into the crook of his neck once again. His ear was over his pulse; Miles' heartbeat was the most calming influence Phoenix could imagine, and damned if that wasn't what he needed right now. It was odd to smell Miles scrubbed with Phoenix's own soap, and without his cologne. The essence of 'Miles' was still strongly there, scrubbed clean, warm and unadulterated. Phoenix hoped he could remember this every time he took a shower. Didn't Miles say once that smell is most closely linked to emotion and memory, something like that?

It had been surprisingly easy to walk out of the courtroom with his back straight and his head held high after the disastrous end of the Enigmar trial. He was numb with shock; the realization of what had happened had not sunk into his consciousness yet. The sudden judgment, the disappearance—it was all too fucking _surreal_ to process at one time.

The real challenge had come in hiding his emotions during the Bar Association review. By that time an entire afternoon had passed during which his brain began to process and absorb that morning's events, and the shock that he had less than a day to prepare his own defense was the cerebral effect of a steel-toed boot to the stomach. He had desperately tried to scrabble together information, knowing full well that the 'witness' Klavier had brought forward was lying, though he was nowhere to be found at the courthouse or the district attorney's office, and his studio was abandoned save for one irritable detective smoking in the doorway who pulled aside her jacket and showed Phoenix the .45 in her shoulder holster and the taser on her belt when he insisted on being allowed to examine the studio. He knew he wouldn't be shot no matter what crazy-ass thing he tried, but after his encounter with Manfred Von Karma even the vague _threat _of being tased was enough to make Phoenix back off. That was probably the worst physical pain he had ever felt in his life.

This was one time when Phoenix would have been elated to see Detective Gumshoe—he could usually be persuaded to let Phoenix into the crime scene, and worst-case scenario Phoenix could call in some favors—but he was nowhere to be found. Phoenix had finished the evening desperately mining law books and online archives for anything that could be used in his defense, but the odd cocktail of fatigue, panic, and energy shots made him lose track of time. By the time he had realized he had forgotten to call Edgeworth, he had an hour to be at the courthouse, and just a handful of laws and guidelines in his reservoir.

The hearing was fast. Dirty. Suspiciously so. The panel had filed in seemingly ready to make their decision, lips firmed in disapproval, some looking almost nervous themselves, though Phoenix had no idea why. Kristoph Gavin had arrived fashionably late and seated himself at the head of the table, and nobody reprimanded him in the slightest. Though the hearing was supposed to be an Arthurian, democratic process in which everybody held equal power of decision, Gavin was clearly calling the shots. He infuriatingly overturned every bill and law Phoenix presented in his defense. They had conclusive evidence, he kept saying. Documents with Phoenix's handwriting requesting the forged evidence for the trial. A witness testimony. Under the current system, Gavin had said, flipping his hair in a manner that Phoenix was finding infuriating, subjective considerations and circumstantial evidence were secondary to conclusive, concrete evidence, period, end of story. He had proceeded to lecture Phoenix on the dangers of a system that would rest on subjective judgments and personal evaluations, listing the multiple party-line reasons for the abolition of trial by jury years before. Phoenix finally lost his temper and smashed his hands into the desk, asking what the hell any of that had to do with this hearing.

"What it has to do with this hearing, Mr. Wright, is that every one of your arguments boils down to an appeal for an evaluation of your character, and not the physical evidence wracked up against you. You _have no physical evidence in your defense_." Gavin pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, still smiling darkly. "The age of such baseless emotional appeals is dead. You're a charismatic man, Mr. Wright. I will give you that. You give off a convincing air of simplicity and innocence and _honesty_. The hero of the downtrodden and those being threatened by The System. It's the persona every defense attorney adopts to survive. But we're not buying it anymore. Time was that a charismatic man could get away with murder, even, in the face of heaps of evidence against him, just by getting people to believe in him, to trust him. The history of law is riddled with these decisions. No more." Gavin's eyes became hard with something Phoenix could only describe as 'loathing'. "No more gut-instinct decisions from easily-manipulated, emotional people. Hard evidence is the judge and jury of the world now, Mr. Wright, and hard evidence has declared you guilty of the crime of forging evidence for use in a trial in a court of law." Gavin's mouth twisted into a sick, triumphant smile, so beautiful, so smooth. "And the penalty for that crime is the surrender of your badge and all rights and responsibilities levied upon a holder of the Bar in the United States and the State of California." He stood. "We will now make our decision."

They all filed out of the room. The door closed, and Phoenix was left standing, alone, ears ringing in the dead silence. He realized that he was shaking, limbs intermittently jerking away from the tension of trying to hold them still. He could not bring himself to sit down. He stood, knees locked and stomach clenched, until the panel filed back in. He carefully studied their faces. Some looked almost pitying, some guilty, some bemused, some blank. He swallowed and stood up straighter, though he felt like he was going to pass out.

Kristoph Gavin was the last to file in. He closed the door behind him, sat down, and shook his head.

"Ah, Mr. Wright. I admit despite my former comments on the sovereignty of evidence to this panel, I could not bring myself to vote for your disbarment. The evidence is simply _not enough_ to warrant such a punishment, especially to such an accomplished attorney as yourself."

_Bullshit._ Phoenix's fingernails bit into his palms. _You're trying to direct any suspicion away from yourself, you bastard. At least have the balls to dirty your own hands in this._

"However…" Gavin sighed and flipped his hair out of his eyes again. "I regret to inform you that the rest of the panel has voted unanimously, save for myself, to disbar you. You are henceforth stripped of all rights and responsibilities levied on members of the Bar. You will surrender your badge now."

The roaring in Phoenix's ears was becoming deafening. He remained rigid, immobile. He knew all eyes on the room were on him, but he did not care about anybody else. The rest of the panel consisted of specters. Gavin was the only real, rooting influence in the room.

"Now, Mr. Wright."

Phoenix did not realize how badly his hands were shaking until he tried to remove the gold badge from his lapel. He finally worked the back free of the pin, was able to pull the pin free of the wool and re-cap it, slid it across the table into Gavin's waiting hand. The lapel was bare now, save for a seemingly-gaping pin hole. He could not bring himself to look at either the jacket or the hand Gavin had cupped over the badge. He stared straight ahead stubbornly.

"It is the mercy of this panel, however, that has decided to spare you any additional criminal charges of perjury, forgery, and obstruction of justice. The panel has agreed to let you go in exchange for the peaceful exchange of your badge. I hope the mercy and justice shown you today are never far from your mind."

_Mercy? Justice?_

It took every ounce of willpower Phoenix possessed not to lunge over the table and smash Gavin's head against the wall. He swallowed, realizing just how much his throat was burning.

"Do you have any final comments, Mr. Wright?"

Phoenix's stare did not waver. He took a deep, angry breath through his nose, exhaled. Stared. Gavin sighed and gathered the papers in front of him, aligning them against the tabletop. The clack was like a judge's gavel.

"Then this hearing is adjourned."

Phoenix did not really see any of the other people who filed out after Gavin. They were a blur, something he stared _through_ as he kept staring at Gavin, seeing him through walls, through corridors, through distance. Carrying his badge.

He did not remember how long he stood in that spot. He remembered overwhelming rage, and despair, and a sudden, shocked sense of grief and loss. But he did not let any of them see him cry. He had somehow found the strength to walk out of that building with his head held high; he had not broken down until he was back at his apartment. He had closed the door behind him, slid down it, and cried harder than he could remember crying since he thought Miles had committed suicide.

It wasn't fair.

They lied.

Why? He had never done a single thing to either of the Gavin brothers.

Why?

'_A lawyer is a person who doesn't cry until it's all over', huh, Mia? _

_Never cared for what they say  
Never cared for games they play  
Never cared for what they do  
Never cared for what they know  
And I know_

"Phoenix."

Phoenix looked up, shocked back to the present. Miles' eyes were still closed. In his lucid-memory state he had half-forgotten Miles, and upon releasing his hand he saw the red marks he was digging into Miles' arm.

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

Miles was trying to open his eyes, but they kept snapping closed. Phoenix brushed his hair out of his face and kissed him on the forehead.

"You should go back to sleep."

Miles made a vague noise of protest, but was soon breathing rhythmically in sleep again. Phoenix sighed and rested his head in the crook of Miles' neck again, holding him close enough to feel his heartbeat against his chest. He slipped into a semi-conscious lucid state; he did not know how long he had dozed like this when he was snapped back to consciousness by his very squeaky bedroom door creaking open.

He barely had time to sit up before a small body barreled into him, hugging him tightly.

"Mr. Nick! Mr. Nick!"

"…_Pearl_?!"

"Nick!"

Maya jumped onto the bed after Pearl, rising up on her shins to bowl Phoenix over as well. He yelled in shock, overbalanced sideways, and fell onto Miles, who hollered and almost fell off the bed. It took Miles a moment longer to process what was going on.

"…Maya! Pearl!"

"Mr. Edgeworth!"

Maya knew Edgeworth too well to be daunted by his seemingly livid glare. She hugged him tightly as well, and Phoenix noted with panic that Pearl was taking this opportunity to try to worm under the covers between them. Maya, thankfully, reacted more quickly than Phoenix, and pulled Pearl back by her sash.

"Oh, Pearly, I just remembered something. Go get some cash out of Nick's wallet and get us all some drumsticks at the 7-Eleven. Remember the one on the corner?"

"Excuse me—?" Phoenix sputtered.

"Can Mr. Edgeworth go with me?"

"Why?" Maya and Edgeworth asked simultaneously.

"So you and Mr. Nick can have some alone time!"

Edgeworth arched his eyebrows and glanced from Maya to Phoenix. Phoenix shrugged back at him.

"Mr. Edgeworth is in his pajamas," Maya said quickly. "He can go with you another time." She nudged Pearl toward the end of the bed. "Go on, it won't take you five minutes."

Pearl glared at Maya suspiciously for a moment. Maya glared back with her hands on her hips. Pearl finally broke the stare and dug around in Phoenix's discarded blue pants for his wallet, and emerged with a twenty.

"Okay, I'll be right back, then!" She wagged her finger at Maya and Phoenix. "No kissing in front of Mr. Edgeworth, though."

"Okay, Pearls." Phoenix's voice sounded more tired than he expected. "Just… bring back change, okay?"

Edgeworth still had his arms crossed after Pearl left. He arched his eyebrow at Maya.

"Is it safe to send a little girl down to the 7-Eleven after midnight?"

"Pearl can take care of herself. Besides, it's two buildings away." Maya slid off the end of the bed and looked from Phoenix to Edgeworth awkwardly. "You… should use this opportunity to put some clothes on."

"I'm not leaving these sheets until _you_ leave!"

Phoenix's voice came out squeaker than he would have liked. He was just now realizing how utterly naïve Pearl had to be not to understand what was going on between him and Edgeworth. Nobody he knew over the age of five would mistake two grown men cuddling shirtless as a 'sleepover'. That, or she _did_ realize what it meant, but was so deep in denial she would see whatever she wanted. He sighed. This was a talk he had not been looking forward to having with Pearl, but it was becoming unavoidable.

Maya had stuck her tongue out at Phoenix and waited in the living room while he and Edgeworth had thrown on sweatpants. Phoenix had momentarily debated putting on a shirt, but it would look fishy if he was suddenly more clothed when Pearl got back. By the time Pearl _did_ get back, with a plastic bag of Drumsticks and, hopefully, change, Phoenix and Miles were back under the sheets plus pants, and Maya was sitting in front of the two men with her legs folded under her. Pearl clambered up on the bed happily and set the bag on top of Phoenix's legs.

"I'm back!"

"Pearls, can you eat these without dripping ice cream all over the bed? I just washed the sheets."

"Yup!"

She eagerly passed out Drumsticks to everybody in the party, peeled back the paper and pulled out the thick-paper disc squashing the top of the cone, and started munching on her own. While she caught any drips that threatened to get on the bed, her face was covered in chocolate and ice cream, and she was smiling in such simple pleasure Phoenix could not help smiling for the first time all day. He also found it amusing to watch Edgeworth nip at his, and he wondered if Edgeworth had indulged himself in such cheap, delicious, pedestrian fare since they were both in elementary school and would stop by the Quik Mart on the way to Phoenix's house from the bus stop.

"You're going to need a napkin there, Pearls," said Phoenix

Edgeworth shrugged and set the Kleenex box from the bedside table in front of her. Phoenix noted with panic that it was the box he only kept so close for jerking off, but there was no way in hell Pearl would make _that_ association if she thought _this_ was just a big slumber party. Regardless, it still bothered him to watch her pluck a few tissues out and clean up with them.

"It's great to see you guys, but…" _Call ahead next time oh please oh God at least Edgeworth and I weren't doing anything._ "…what are you doing out here so early, anyway? I thought you were coming next week."

"Don't be an idiot." Maya was munching on the cone already. "Detective Gumshoe called us today and told us what happened with the trial. We took the first train down here we could."

"We would have come earlier, but we had channeling appointments, and Detective Gumshoe told us Mr. Edgeworth was coming out here to keep you company."

"So you were told what happened, huh?"

"Actually…" Maya looked up in thought. "…no, not really. He himself didn't have many details. Which is why you're going to have to tell us everything."

_Oh God, the Scooby Gang is going to want to help me with this one, aren't they?_

"Wright hasn't told me much, either."

Phoenix knew he should not be getting aroused right now watching Edgeworth lick ice cream off the blade of his hand, not with Pearl damn near sitting in his lap, so he stared at his own cone as Edgeworth talked.

"So, I guess we all need to hear the story."

All eyes were on him. Phoenix sighed and looked up, licked ice cream off of his own hand.

"All right. Here we go."

* * *

It was easy for Edgeworth to demand an audience with the panel who had tried Wright yesterday. He still wielded considerable clout at the Los Angeles Bar Association office, and he had the luxury of having been gone long enough to not be given the usual hassle when he demanded such a sudden meeting, to be treated as a sort of guest. He was told that the panel would be willing to meet with him tomorrow morning.

At first Edgeworth was pleased he would have an additional day to prepare an appeal, but there was not much he could do beyond what he had already done on the airplane. He fretted over his notes and lack of evidence until Phoenix pulled him away from his laptop. By that point he almost wished he could have just gotten it _done_ that day; sitting twiddling his thumbs made him nervous, made him feel useless.

He had heard every detail of the trial that Phoenix knew. They all had, last night, well into the early hours of the morning. Pearl had nodded off halfway through, and was still curled up asleep on the couch when Edgeworth had returned from making arrangements for the appeal. He was exhausted, and his sleep schedule was still screwed up, but he had to be at the hearing tomorrow at 10:00 AM. He forced himself to stay awake until midnight.

Phoenix and Maya went to get pizza and beer, which culminated in both of them getting drunk, Pearl lecturing both of them severely, and Edgeworth trying not to smile as Maya decided it would be a good idea to watch _Steel Samurai_ reruns she could quote verbatim—Edgeworth as well, though it was beneath him to admit it. Somehow the alcohol made the reruns seem screamingly funny. They laughed madly every time Will Powers did something silly or distinctive, which was damn near every thirty seconds. Edgeworth wondered if Powers had any idea that his former attorney and his assistant were gleefully making fun of him like an old friend in a home movie.

Now that he was looking for signs of matchmaking, it was painfully obvious to Edgeworth that Pearl was lost in the delusion that Phoenix and Maya were a couple, or at least meant to be one. He did not understand how this did not whack him in the face before. She kept steering them toward one another, assigning them seats firmly, and, as far as Edgeworth could tell, whispering good pick-up lines into Phoenix's ear. Phoenix good-naturedly shrugged her off. That patience was beyond Edgeworth; he would have lost his temper long ago or responded with constant acidic sarcasm.

Phoenix had told Edgeworth the basics of that story. For all that Edgeworth was no good at dealing with kids, Pearl was the only person who could make him feel guilty for being with Phoenix, and damned if he knew why. It was clear that both Phoenix and Maya loved her fiercely; eventually, she would come to realize that was precious enough. Usually Edgeworth had thin patience with children—it extended until he realized just telling them something about life did not make them _understand_ that thing about life. He never had a much of a childhood, especially after his father's murder; just realizing that about himself was not enough for him to all of a sudden _understand_ children who still had some vestige of innocence intact. He felt a particular softness for Pearl, despite that; they had both lost their families to human cruelty, spite, and greed at roughly the same age. But she had a precious gift at this point in her life Edgeworth had not had; Franziska had not even been born yet, and Manfred Von Karma was the furthest thing imaginable from warm and loving. As much as things were not turning out the way she wanted, she still had warmth and love.

At around one AM Edgeworth was inclined to break up the party, to grill Phoenix one more time regarding everything that had happened during the case and the resulting hearing, but Phoenix's happiness stayed his hand. This laughing, uninhibited Phoenix was a far cry from the devastated Phoenix that had greeted Edgeworth upon his arrival. He sighed and smiled to himself, basking in the ambiance of happiness, warmed by the vodka he had found in Phoenix's freezer. Maya tried to force more vodka on Edgeworth, but when Edgeworth reminded her that he could not be hung over during Phoenix's appeal tomorrow, she abruptly stopped harassing him. He would have to remember to use such excuses next time she went on the warpath to get him trashed.

After he had tucked a naturally-asleep Pearl and drunken-asleep Maya in on the sofa-bed, Edgeworth got into bed next to Phoenix, who seemed to him to also be dead asleep. He was wrong.

"You're drunk," said Edgeworth.

"So?" Phoenix had crawled on top of Edgeworth and was nuzzling him like a cat in heat. "You're drunk too."

"I had a little bit to drink, Wright. I'm not drunk."

"Ooh, so businesslike."

Phoenix kissed Miles, cramming his tongue into his mouth clumsily, and started playing with the waistband of Miles' boxers. Miles moaned softly. He had been aching for Phoenix's touch for ages, but—

"_No._ No."

Edgeworth grabbed Phoenix's hand just as he started playing with his cock. Phoenix looked like he had just been kicked.

"But… Miles…"

Miles kissed Phoenix softly and smoothed down his hair. "Phoenix, I can assure you—as you probably have noticed—I want nothing more in the world than to fuck your brains out, to use the vernacular. It's—God, it's all I can think about when I'm not with you." He kissed Phoenix again, this time deeper. "But the girls are asleep outside, and I have to get up in a few hours for your appeal. I really need to sleep. I promise, as soon as we get the chance…"

He kissed Phoenix again. The kiss got heated, but Phoenix was the one to pull away first. He gave Edgeworth a concerned look.

"You don't have to do this for me, Miles."

"I know."

He kissed Phoenix again and curled up with him. He was just about to fall asleep when—

"Miles?"

"Hmm."

"Do you really believe that I'm innocent?"

_Trust I seek and I find in you  
Every day for us, something new  
Open mind for a different view_

Miles sighed and traced patterns Phoenix's back absentmindedly. "Phoenix, if there's a single attorney in this city who really cares about truth and justice and all of those party-line ideals, it's you. Now, go to sleep."

"You didn't answer my question."

"_Yes_, all right?" Miles kissed his shoulder and snuggled back down. "I love you. Good night."

"I love you, Miles."

Another pause.

"You sure you don't wanna just… you know…?"

"Good _night_, Phoenix."

* * *

_And nothing else matters_

* * *

"Phoenix Wright would never forge evidence."

"Oh, we know he didn't _forge_ evidence. We know he _used_ forged evidence."

"That may be, but he never would have used forged evidence _knowingly_."

"What is your _proof_, Prosecutor Edgeworth?"

Edgeworth exhaled through his nose and glared at Kristoph, arms crossed. The man was infuriatingly calm, leaning back in a chair with his ankle resting on the other knee, fingers interlaced over his stomach.

"Look. Of the hundreds and hundreds of defense attorneys I've met over the years, he's the only one who really believes in defending the innocent. He's too damn honest for his own good. He's wholeheartedly devoted to the truth. I've… worked with him on a case in which his client was guilty, and we both knew it, and he wanted to see the bastard put away as badly as I did. I put my own badge on the line with this testimony. He's innocent. He's not obsessed with his win record. He's… he changed me. The force of his honesty made me evaluate the very way I think about law. He made me believe in truth over perfection again. And if anybody can make me re-evaluate the way I was—how blind and stubborn and basically the confirmation of every ill rumor circulating about me I was—that person is innocent."

Kristoph brushed his hair aside and shook his head. Edgeworth's expression flattened; he had learned Kristoph's mannerisms all too well.

_Wonderful. Now what?_

"It's touching that you'd come back from abroad just to defend Mr. Wright, but I'm afraid we can't take any testimony you have as objective."

Edgeworth's stomach churned, but he kept his expression flat. He tapped his forearm with his finger.

"…what do you mean?"

"You're not a disinterested party. We know for a fact that you and Mr. Wright are… romantically involved."

Edgeworth's grip on his forearm tightened. Some of the men and women around the table were exchanging _looks_ ranging from shocked to 'hah, I knew it'. Kristoph's self-satisfied smirk was infuriating; Edgeworth's hand jerked reflexively, but he gripped his jacket tighter to keep from lunging across the table and punching him in the mouth.

"And does that mean you can't listen to my testimony?"

"I'm afraid so, Prosecutor."

"That's illegal. Even if a _spouse_ wants to testify, the court must listen to his or her testimony. It is held to the same standards as any other party's."

"If you want to supply us with subjective testimony, we have no choice but to respond subjectively ourselves. That is, unless, you have conclusive evidence."

Edgeworth's knuckles were turning white. _No I don't have conclusive evidence; I just heard about this forty-eight hours ago, you prick._

"And, unfortunately, this also calls into question every verdict that was made when you and Mr. Wright were the lawyers for the same case."

Edgeworth's eye twitched. He slammed his palms into the desk. "…what—"

"It's funny that your perfect win record is suddenly broken when that green, haphazard idiot takes the stand opposite you. Doesn't that strike you as suspicious? You were top of your class at University of Berlin—and trust me, I know the level of obsession that takes—and he skated by at Ivy Law with 3.0. And let's recall that 'Ivy' is really a misleading term for this university."

"It's an accredited university."

"It's not actually in the Ivy League. Looking at his high school and undergraduate records, there's no way he'd make it into a legitimate Ivy."

"So _what_?"

"He barely clawed his way through his Bar Exam. Your International Bar score was in the top first percentile—"

"So I was more serious in college than he was. What's your point?"

"I'm afraid we have reason to suspect that you and Mr. Wright were making some sort of… dealing."

"Deal—this is ridiculous." Edgeworth pounded the desk with his fist. He knew the muscle under his eye was twitching madly. "We weren't even romantically-involved at that point."

"But you were old friends, were you not?"

"Yes, but I was still… estranged. And what the hell motive would I have anyway to make a deal with him? God knows he has no money or power. What the hell could he give me?" Edgeworth paused. "And don't you _dare_ say 'sex'; if that's all I wanted I could find a high-class hooker easily."

"I do have to admit that all you say is true, so far." Kristoph pushed his glasses up his nose. "But, maybe your emotions began to cloud your judgment. You've already displayed to us that you view him with… ah… rose-colored glasses—hard as I find it to believe that the 'Demon Prosecutor' would be affected by something like love."

"I've changed."

"People never change, Mr. Edgeworth." Kristoph stared at Edgeworth over his glasses, still holding them in place, smiling darkly. "They claim that they will, and they may go through the motions—convincingly—for a while, but they never, ever change."

Edgeworth's fist was trembling. "So what does this mean? You can't re-review those cases. Not if they ended with a 'not guilty' verdict."

"We can if falsified evidence was involved. You know damn well we know the rumors that were circulating about you yourself."

"That doesn't even make sense." Edgeworth slammed his palms into the table. "You speculate that I took several dives. Why would I need to _forge_ evidence for that?"

"Maybe you… ah… loosened the quality control you exerted over evidence presented in court by the defense."

"This is ludicrous. I will not allow you to derail the inquiry with accusations against me. I'm here to speak on Mr. Wright's behalf, not my own."

"Ever to the point, I see. And, if that really is all you wanted to discuss, Mr. Edgeworth, we've deemed that you are not fit to speak on Mr. Wright's behalf, given your inherent bias and the suspicions leveled against you." Kristoph brushed his hair out of his eyes and stood, picking up his briefcase. "Which would mean that this hearing is over."

The other board members gathered their papers and filed out, glancing at Edgeworth over their shoulders. Some of the shit-eating smirks were too much to bear; he was sure—though admittedly his imagination may have been overactive at that point—somebody whispered, "I _knew_ it."

For being the first to begin gathering his things, Kristoph was the last one left in the room with Edgeworth. He was moving with deliberate, smooth slowness, waiting for Edgeworth to say something with that insufferable smirk. He looked up as Edgeworth walked around the long, mahogany table toward him, and shook his head, flipping his hair out of his eyes with the backs of his fingers.

"_If you've got something to say to me, Prosecutor, say it."_ He had switched to German. _"Unlike you I have obligations I have no intention of running from."_

Edgeworth grabbed Kristoph's jacket by the shoulder and smashed him into the wall, pinning him by the neck. He felt Kristoph's pulse, frantic, felt him laugh beneath his hand. Both men's breathing was ragged.

"_And now you want to add assault to your forgery charges?"_

"_You have nothing on me."_

"_Really? You're entirely sure you didn't leave any sort of paper trail?"_

"_What the hell are you talking about?"_

"_Man goes by the name of Bear, was murdered last year by atroquinine poisoning; he was a well-known forger, kept the names and documents he made for all his clients in a safe-deposit box. At the request of the Prosecutor's office that book was confiscated for the hearing. My little brother gave me the honor of going to retrieve it."_ Edgeworth felt his heart stop; the implication of what resulted from that trust was unmistakable. Kristoph smiled. _"He has records going back… many years. Years before Mr. Wright ever entered the picture, if you understand me."_

Edgeworth's grip tightened; Kristoph's bones creaked. Kristoph laughed weakly and gripped Edgeworth's hand by the meat, dug his fingernails in between the muscles padding the base of his thumb, twisted back against the wrist's axis of rotation. Edgeworth let go immediately, almost gladly, of Kristoph's neck, but kept his grip on his jacket.

_This…this can't be happening; I've put this all behind me—_

"_Collateral."_ Kristoph pushed his glasses up his nose. _"If you come after me, you will lose your Bar too. And with that you will lose all clout and credibility you have at your disposal to help your boyfriend. Martyring yourself will be of no help to him. I have conclusive evidence against Mr. Wright, and you have none in his defense. I have conclusive evidence against _you_, too; I can strike you down before you even have a chance to put together a case. Don't be rash, Edgeworth. If I go down now, you're going down with me. And that's before either of us even touches the issue that lost Wright his Bar. Think about it."_

Edgeworth slammed Kristoph's shoulder into the wall and stormed off. He heard Kristoph laughing behind him, was sure he was pushing his glasses up his nose with that infuriatingly smug look on his face.

"_Watch your step around here, Prosecutor. Never point a gun at something you're not willing to destroy. Otherwise, it will destroy you."_

* * *

_No, nothing else matters_


	4. Memory 03: Kimi to Iu Hikari

Okay. Obligatory smut warning in this chapter. Yaoi smut. If you don't like it, don't read.

* * *

**Memory 03: "Kimi" to Iu Hikari**

"I screwed up."

Edgeworth was stretched out supine on Phoenix's couch, cravat undone, coat slung over the back of a chair. Pearl was perched on her knees on the neighboring, mismatched armchair, watching Edgeworth in horrified enthrallment. Maya had finally taken the bottle of vodka away from him, though he had only nursed enough to numb his senses and not make himself ill.

"I thought I had put that idiotic, _foolish_ mistake behind me; it was only my second case, I knew the guy was guilty and I refused to see him get off—and now it's rendering me useless."

"You're not useless, Mr. Edgeworth!" yelled Pearl. "Guys need their best friends as much as their girlfriends, right?"

Edgeworth couldn't help arching his eyebrows as he glanced at Pearl. This was hardly the time to digress into this topic.

"There has to be some way we can nail Kristoph for this forgery before he nails you back," said Maya. She was clenching her fists, mimicking the motion of pulling something toward herself, bringing it into submission. She looked up. Her hellbent expression was all-too familiar, even given Edgeworth's relatively limited interaction with her.

_Please don't do anything stupid; even though I don't know what the hell you could do to Kristoph Gavin, please don't surprise me._

Hopefully, if anything, she would resort to metaphysical tactics, which as far as Edgeworth was concerned were thoroughly useless anyway. He sighed.

"That's going to take some careful watching." Edgeworth ran his fingers over his eyes. "He's… not an idiot. He's got the Bar Review Board eating out of the palm of his hand. He's got… a lot of information on a lot of people." _Not just me._ "If I'm not careful he'd bring the entire board down on my head before I could even make an official appeal to a higher court. I'd be disabled before I could even start."

He swore quietly in German and dropped his head back on the armrest. It had been a long time since anybody had seen him this agitated, and Maya wasn't entirely sure what to do. Usually Nick could be trusted to sooth Edgeworth's frayed nerves, but Nick was in a sorry state of his own right now.

"I wound up hurting him," Edgeworth said quietly. "He's too pure for somebody like me. Too good."

"Oh, don't start this self-loathing fishing-for-compliments crap now." Maya sat down on the ottoman next to Edgeworth. "Look, Nick is mad about you. Absolutely, madly in love with you. You should have seen him when he thought you were… gone." Her eyes went distant, staring sidelong at the floor through heavy lids. "…it was like he had closed off his heart to the sunshine of the world."

A silence. It took Edgeworth a moment to realize how lightheaded he felt. He heard Pearl sniff—hard—and both he and Maya looked at her. Pearl was staring at the floor, leaning on her hands between her knees, lip quivering, glaring back tears.

Maya sighed heavily. "Pearly, we've talked about this, remember?"

Pearl jumped up and ran out the door, scooping up her sandals in one hand from the entryway. The door slammed behind her. Maya sighed heavily and stood.

"For God's sake…"

She started walking toward the door, paused, and turned on her heels, looking back across the room. "Nick, you'll take care of Mr. Edgeworth, won't you?"

Edgeworth followed her gaze. Phoenix was leaning in the bedroom doorway, clad in nothing but his idiotic Tabasco boxers and still looking half-asleep. His hair was mussed and falling down around his face without its usual gel. He nodded.

"And when we come back, please be wearing more than just a smile."

Maya had closed the door behind her before Phoenix or Edgeworth could respond. Edgeworth sighed and rested his head back on the couch armrest, closing his eyes. He heard Phoenix walk over, felt him sit next to him.

"How long were you standing there?"

"Long enough."

"So you heard…?"

Edgeworth opened his eyes. Phoenix met his eyes for a moment, looked away, nodded. Edgeworth sighed and rested his head back down.

"I don't know why Pearl is pulling this right now. Seems rather self-centered."

"Miles, she's _nine_."

"So? When I was nine—"

He stopped, knowing fully well it was a moot point. He sighed heavily and ran his hands over his eyes.

"Phoenix, I'm so sorry. I'd… I'd give up my bar for you in a moment if it would get yours back. But you heard. I can't strike now, not without knowing everything that happened. I'd lose the only chance I have to help you."

"It's the truth, then? You really did forge evidence?"

Miles opened his eyes. Phoenix was staring at the floor, face unreadable.

"I… yeah." Miles closed his eyes again. "It's true. Just once. My second trial. I… I really thought it was the right thing to do at the time."

Another silence. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Because I—I was embarrassed, all right? Ashamed. I couldn't change it. I wanted to leave it in the past and move on. And I'd especially be embarrassed to tell you—"

"Did you put an innocent person in jail?" Phoenix was staring at the opposite wall. His eyes were hard. "Just for your win record?"

"What—no!" Miles groaned and ran his fingers over his face. _Oh God, here we go._ "He was guilty. Absolutely guilty. But under the current system, without that one piece of evidence, arbitrary, lost somewhere in the crime scene, he would have walked… This isn't a game or a television show. All the clues aren't out there just waiting to be sewn together. Every scrap of logic tied the crime to him. Any jury would have voted him 'guilty'. But he was careful, meticulous. Covered his tracks. A professional."

Phoenix was silent. Miles swallowed.

"…then…" Phoenix finally said, "where do you draw the line? Replacing the 'truth' with your preconceptions, putting innocent people in jail—"

"—or letting killers walk free just because there wasn't enough evidence?" Miles sat up on his elbows. Phoenix was glaring at the ground. "The old trial by jury system, the current evidence-only system… neither one was perfect. Both let killers walk free. Both put innocent men in jail. And you—" Edgeworth pointed at Phoenix, swaying drunkenly up on one elbow. His arm jerked with the movement. "—you know exactly what I mean. Entrapping Tigre into confessing he knew too much about the crime scene by misrepresenting evidence? Matt Engarde?"

Phoenix looked up and glared at Miles, hard. "I never _forged anything_."

"I got a confession out of the killer." Miles sighed heavily. "It's… it was the last thing I could do. It was something I knew was missing from the scene. I had seen it before, but it disappeared, and I hadn't taken any proof of its existence before. I only left the crime scene for an hour—I did not have anywhere to put it—and it was gone when I returned. That would have changed everything. A replica of evidence is permissible if you can otherwise prove that object was there, and you make it clear that you are presenting a replica. I… couldn't tell the court it was a replica. I had no proof it was there but my own observations." He paused. "I was not going to allow my own carelessness to interfere with the trial."

Phoenix was silent again. Miles continued, "He confessed to the serial rape and murder of several women, Phoenix. He was a biochemist. Decomposed the bodies in vats of sodium hydroxide, destroyed all traces of DNA evidence. No prints. No secretions of any kind. He wore gloves, carried reagents to all of his crimes to clean up. He was smart. In his confession he admitted several details only known to the police. Please understand. Demon Prosecutor though I may have been, I swear I never forged evidence that had never existed. I swear."

Phoenix was silent. Miles sighed and rested his head back down on the couch, closed his eyes. It was a long time before Phoenix spoke.

"Thank you, Miles."

Edgeworth opened his eyes. Phoenix was still staring beyond a spot several yards away on the ground. His brows, though furrowed, bent back; he was seemingly near tears with conflict.

"I… the appeal?" Edgeworth shrugged. "It was my duty. Justice was violated in that courtroom."

"I also mean for telling me the truth."

Edgeworth nodded. "Well, I really did not have much choice, given…" He sighed, staring at the opposite wall. "…I'm so sorry, Phoenix. I never wanted to have to explain this to you, because I didn't want you to hate me, but this whole ordeal ended up hurting you in the end. It's made me unable to help you right now."

"…right now."

"I'm not going to let Kristoph Gavin get away with this. I can bide my time, watch him, if it takes years. I will nail him as soon as I get the chance to strike."

"As adorable as you are when you play the knight in shining armor, I have the same sentiments and desire to defend myself." Phoenix kissed Miles on the cheekbone. He leaned over him on the couch, balancing on his forearms. The heat from his stripped body was intoxicating; the scent and closeness made Edgeworth sigh peacefully and close his eyes. "But I'm glad you're willing to fight alongside me."

"Always."

Miles' smile grew larger as Phoenix kissed his other cheekbone, then started to kiss his eyelids, his forehead, his cheeks. His movements were getting heavier.

"The girls may be back at any minute."

"Hm, I don't know." Phoenix started kissing in the crook of Miles' neck, and Miles groaned, arcing up into Phoenix. His body was already humming in response. "I rather like the idea of you wearing nothing but a smile."

Phoenix's phone went off in the bedroom. He pulled back, annoyed, glancing sidelong at the door. Miles arched his eyebrows.

"_Steel Samurai_ ringtone?"

"It's Maya."

Phoenix gave Miles a quick kiss before pushing himself off the couch and walking into the bedroom. A moment later, the ringtone stopped, and Phoenix said something inaudible through the wall. Miles closed his eyes and sat back, body still humming with restrained energy, listening to the murmur of Phoenix's voice through the wall. A barely audible good-bye. A moment later, Phoenix walked back into the room.

He was wearing one of the sleaziest smiles Miles had ever seen in his life. This was only accentuated by the fact that he was still stripped down to his boxers.

"Well, it seems Maya and Pearl have decided to go have a girls' afternoon around town. Maya was just calling to say not to expect them until this evening."

Miles wondered if it hurt Phoenix's face to keep smiling like that. He straightened his cravat and sat up.

"Is she psychic or something?"

"Actually, yes." Miles resisted the urge to point out that he meant that rhetorically and that anybody with any semblance of awareness could tell what they wanted to do, but after several cases involving the Fey girls Phoenix was as staunch a believer in the metaphysical as anyone at the Psychic Bookstore. "The only stipulation is that we take her and Pearl out to eat wherever they want tonight. Even if we have to dress up."

"I think we can manage that."

That damn smile was infectious—especially so, given that Miles was just glad to see Phoenix smiling again. He stood and put his hands in his pockets nonchalantly, hoping he seemed steadier than he felt. He had not realized how much he had drunk in the space of an hour.

"So, what do you suggest we do?"

The next thing Miles knew, he was shoved shoulders-first into the wall and Phoenix was kissing him desperately, untucking his shirt and running his hands up and down Miles' chest. He unbuttoned Miles' vest and left it hanging slack on his shoulders. Miles started undoing his cravat before Phoenix had a chance to muck up untying it as he usually did, or stretched it out by pushing his hands too far up under the collar.

"Wait, wait." Miles grabbed Phoenix's hands firmly, mumbling breathlessly around kisses. He finished untying the cravat and threw it aside. "Okay, now we're ready to go."

Phoenix laughed breathlessly into his mouth, running his hands up under Miles' shirt, up his torso, up his chest. He slid his hands back out and started unbuttoning the shirt.

"I can't believe I ever wondered if you were straight."

"Shut up, Wright."

Miles arced back into Phoenix's touch, allowing his arms to go slack so Phoenix could slide his shirt, and with it, vest, off his shoulders. The clothes pooled in a crescent around his ankles. Phoenix grasped Miles' flanks loosely and stepped back, looking him up and down appreciatively. His right hand ghosted up his ribs, thumb massaging his stomach, up under his arm, and his thumb brushed over Miles' nipple before Phoenix lifted his hand and ghosted it over Miles' shoulder and down his back. He trailed his fingertips down Miles' spine, then pressed on Miles' back and grasped him tightly to his own chest. Miles paused, lost in the warmth of being crushed so close, bare skin melding, and trailed his fingers down Phoenix's shoulder-blade. He slid his hands across Phoenix's back and clutched as well. As they stood within an inch of the same height it was easy, comfortable, to hold each other so close, desperately close, crushingly close, warm skin against skin, cheek against cheek, chests rising and falling together. Hearts beating against each other.

Miles traced his curled fingertips up Phoenix's neck and grasped his hair, noting how silky and clean it felt without so much gel. He ran it through his fingers, gently pulled Phoenix's neck back so he could look into his eyes. He remembered, vaguely, being drunk enough to once claim that God had stolen the color of the deepest, clearest ocean from Phoenix's eyes. He remained convinced.

"Miles…" Phoenix murmured softly. He was subconsciously tilting his head to fit his lips against his partner's, fingers digging into Miles' back and crushing them so close together it hurt. Miles dug his fingers harder into Phoenix's hair, knotting strands around joints, and Phoenix hissed softly. He murmured an apology and loosened his grip. Their breath was mingling, lips parted millimeters from one another. Phoenix gently nipped at Miles' lower lip, then the top, again, again, nips growing into gulps, deeper and deeper as though he were dying of thirst and Miles was water. Miles caught his tongue up in his own, opened his jaw wider and crushed their mouths together, tasting, drinking deeply as well. They drank, they drank, they drank, desperately, as though they could never get enough, as though they could meld together with the force of desperation.

Phoenix trailed his hands down Miles' back again, still lapping and massaging Miles' tongue with his own, and dipped below the waistband of his pants and briefly cupped his arse before bringing his hands around to his front, still under the waistband, and curled his fingers lightly around his erection, stroking softly—hardly touching. A feather touch, a ghost touch. Miles hissed sharply and froze for a moment, hands ghosting over Phoenix's wrists, stopping him from messing with his belt buckle.

"Bedroom—come on."

Miles detached himself from Phoenix and stooped to gather up his shirt, vest, and cravat by his feet, straightened, and padded into the bedroom, body humming and hypersensitive to the cold air across his bare skin. As soon as Phoenix closed the bedroom door behind him, dimming the room given the blackout curtains still drawn, Miles dropped his clothes into a careless heap against the wall and grasped Phoenix against himself again. He reveled in the heat the other man's body provided against his skin, the strongly-beating heart, the rise and fall of breath, the articulation and movement of muscle and bone and sinew beneath soft skin. Phoenix ran his fingers lightly down Miles' stomach to make him arch back, hypersensitive to the ghost touch, and give Phoenix access to his belt buckle. His fingers messed with it, ungainly, desperate, tugging against the loose end to slacken the pull against the metal tongue, and finally slipped the tongue out of its hole. He pulled the belt out of the buckle—hard—and Miles closed his hands over Phoenix's wrists, calming his movements to smoothness.

"There." The belt dropped to the floor. "If I lose another beltloop to you, I will take it out of you forcibly, Wright."

* * *

"I think I can live with that."

Phoenix ran his hands up Miles' torso again, briefly, admiring how stunning he looked stripped to the waist like this, and started undoing his pants. He kissed Miles, drawing him closer with his fingers hooked in his waistband, and got the button free, unzipped the fly. He slid the loose trousers down his partner's hips, and Miles stepped out of them when they pooled fuchsia around his ankles, now stripped to black boxers and socks. Phoenix stepped back, admiring once again, and smirked. Miles crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

"Now what?"

"You've missed the sock gap."

Miles looked down at his feet briefly, then back up, arching his eyebrows inquisitively. Phoenix sighed, arching his eyebrows right back.

"You grew up in Europe. Didn't you ever watch _Coupling_?"

"Apparently not."

"Not even _Doctor Who_, none of that BBC stuff?"

"I grew up in _Germany_, and though Germany _did_ produce its own television, much to the shock of the English-speaking world, we did not watch television in our… house."

His voice trailed off sharply. He exhaled through his nose and stared sidelong at the floor, expression unreadable. Phoenix cringed.

_You idiot; stupid, stupid, fucking idiot, Wright—_

"Miles…"

Miles looked up, expression still unreadable, tinged with pain. Phoenix felt like kicking himself in the balls.

"I'm… hey, I'm really sorry, I…"

Miles waved his hand dismissively and leaned down to remove his socks, balancing awkwardly on one foot at a time. "Don't worry about it." He threw his socks into the corner by his clothes and straightened, sighed. "You've helped set me free from a lot of those memories, anyway."

"That doesn't mean they don't still hurt you."

Miles shrugged and crossed his arms. "Well, you can make it up to me, then."

He was tapping his forefinger against his arm, though a smirk was cracking his stern expression. Phoenix glanced down none too subtly and noted that his erection had not flagged. He looked up and smirked back at Miles, beckoning to him with curled fingers as he backed up until his thighs hit the bed. Miles followed, pushing Phoenix back into the soft comforter with a firm hand on his chest. They kissed awkwardly, breathily, as Phoenix backed himself up the bed until he was fully on it; he continued scooting back, wriggling his back and pressing off with his heels, until he was sinking back into soft pillows, Miles still on top of him. He sighed happily and grasped Miles' hair, pulling him down firmly into another deep, slow kiss. He slid the fingers of his free hand under the waistband of Miles' boxers and started to tug them down awkwardly, only managing to pull them half down one hip while the elastic hugged the other waist. Miles laughed silently into Phoenix's mouth and pulled the boxers down his other hip, and they broke away from the kiss momentarily, both looking down as Phoenix gently pulled Miles' cock out of the fabric. It sprung away from the elastic band, standing at a full erection, and Miles exhaled in relief as Phoenix pushed the boxers down to his knees. He curled his legs around and peeled his underwear off, throwing it in the corner with his other clothes.

Phoenix looked up; Miles' gray eyes were half-lidded, pupils dilated in lust. His hair was falling down from its carefully-gelled peaks, some tendrils sticking to the damp already forming on his neck. He had a stunning body: ridiculously-flawless and soft porcelain skin, articulated collarbone, shoulders, and muscle, a hard, slim stomach and narrow waist, neatly-trimmed silver hair surrounding the base of his cock. He was uncircumcised, which Phoenix found amusing to no end; it made Miles more sensitive, more intact, and playing with Miles' foreskin was amusing. Phoenix was himself the result of a botched circumcision, and had a thick, ugly scar marring the underside of his cock, along the head, decreasing his own sensitivity with unfeeling scar tissue across what was, in most men, the most sensitive area. He had always been horridly self-conscious of this disfigurement, and recalled his anguished anticipation the first time Miles had pulled his boxers off and examined the erection that had sprung free, the furrowed eyebrows and look of concern as he discovered the old wound and ran his thumb across it. Though he was looking aside in shame out of the corner of his eye Phoenix saw Miles look up at him and kiss the scar lovingly for several long, suspended seconds before taking Phoenix's head into his mouth.

It was the most sublime and intimate expression of acceptance, the most loving affirmation, Phoenix had experienced in his entire life.

"You're really not very subtle, Wright."

Phoenix snapped back to the present, realizing he had been staring pointedly at Miles' cock for several long seconds. He looked up at Miles and smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. Miles was giving him a flat look.

"Sorry. I was just remembering something."

Miles arched an eyebrow. "Really."

"Not that I don't like staring at you." He kissed Miles softly, fingers trailing down his jawline. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Miles pulled back and smiled softly, fingers playing at the hem of Phoenix's boxers. "You are too." He pulled impatiently, but they did not move under Phoenix's weight. Miles turned his head slightly and looked at Phoenix out of the corners of his eyes, smirking sheepishly. "Take these off."

Phoenix smirked and lifted his hips, pulling his boxers off and sighing softly as his own erection sprang free of them. He threw them against the wall and pulled Miles' hips down against his own firmly with his hand on the small of his back. Miles closed his eyes and groaned softly as Phoenix ground up against him, the sensitive undersides of their cocks rubbing together, and threaded his fingers through Phoenix's hair, kissing him deeply, desperately, as he threaded his other arm under the pillow beneath Phoenix's head, cradling him. Phoenix hissed in pleasure, threading his arms up under Edgeworth's and clutching his back, grinding up hard with his hips. A hot, humming knot was already tightening in his abdomen, and every grind sent pleasure shooting up the nerves in his back and stomach, made every nerve in his body hum. He pulled Miles down—hard—so their stomachs were rubbing together, and the hypersensitivity of his skin made Phoenix shudder in pleasure. His eyes rolled back in his head and his breathing became rhythmic, shallow, mirroring Miles' deeper, halting breaths. He buried himself in the crook of Miles' neck and started kissing up and down, softly, than harshly, desperately. He felt more than heard Miles groan deeply, felt him shudder.

"Try…" Miles gasped as Phoenix ground up into his hips hard. "—try not to leave a mark."

"You always cover your neck anyway." Phoenix sucked deeply in the crook of Miles' neck to make his point, and Miles moaned softly, drawn-out, thrusting reflexively. It was the most beautiful sound in the world. "Besides," Phoenix managed breathlessly between kisses, "I want you to have something to remember me by."

Miles gave a shuddering, broken gasp, moaning softly again, then suddenly pinned Phoenix's wrists above his head. He started sucking—hard—against Phoenix's collarbone, knowing full-well Phoenix was especially sensitive there. Phoenix gasped in shocked pleasure and threw his head back, arcing into Miles. Miles was undulating his hips in maddeningly slow, circular grinds, cresting and ebbing like a wave. He moved down Phoenix's collarbone, eventually crossing his neck, starting to suck a line up the opposite collar. Phoenix hissed in pleasure. Molten lead surged through his stomach.

"Turnabout is fair play."

The smile was evident in Miles' voice. Phoenix smiled in response and arced up into his lips, not caring that he was going to have a line of bruises across his collarbones come tomorrow. He ground hard into Miles, and Miles broke away with a gasp of pleasure. Phoenix smiled impishly at him.

"I'm not going to be able to hold out much longer." Their chests rose and fell in tandem, breathing heavily. Phoenix broke out of one of Miles' hands and brushed his partner's hair out of his eyes lovingly. "So, what do you propose we do?"

Miles stared at him for a moment. Breathing. "…whatever you want." He rubbed Phoenix's temple with his thumb. His eyes were clouded with desire and love, a look so rare and cherished Phoenix always found it impossible to look away. Miles wet his tongue and swallowed. "Whatever you want. Today is your day. You choose."

Phoenix sighed happily and rested his head back on the pillows, closing his eyes. Miles kept brushing his temple with his thumb patiently, lovingly. When Phoenix did not answer quickly, Miles sighed and collapsed against him, resting his head next to Phoenix's on the pillow, still stroking. Phoenix threaded his fingers with Miles' free hand and brought it to his lips.

"If I died right now, I would be happy."

Miles paused. He pushed himself up on his forearm, stared as Phoenix kissed the back of his hand. His expression was indescribable. Clouded by lust, brows bent back as though near tears, near some unspeakably beautiful sadness. He unwove his fingers and stroked Phoenix's hair, staring at a point somewhere above his hand. His eyes flickered to Phoenix's. Focused. Stared.

"I love you, Phoenix."

That near-sadness, burning ache, was contagious. Phoenix blinked rapidly, noting that his eyes were burning.

"I love you, too, Miles."

Miles kept staring with that same aching, longing expression for a long while. Phoenix sighed and rested his head back in the pillows, closing his eyes in utter contentment. He felt Miles shift his weight off his arm, heard him open Phoenix's bedside drawer and shuffle through the junk in there. Phoenix knew what he was looking for, but opened his eyes and glanced at him sidelong anyway.

"Looking for something?"

"Your organizational skills are an abomination."

He finally pulled his curled hand out of the drawer and pressed a crumpled, half-empty tube of lubricant into Phoenix's palm. Phoenix closed his fingers over it, trying to warm it. It was cold, stiff from misuse. He arched his eyebrows and scratched the back of his head.

"I hope this stuff doesn't expire."

"Not in any amount of time you'd keep it around. Besides, I know that even without me at your disposal you keep yourself quite amused."

"Oh, wow, ice burn." Phoenix kissed Miles softly and arched his eyebrows. "And for your information, prosecutor, I haven't been 'amusing myself' since the last time I saw you."

Miles arched his eyebrows back. "Really."

"I wanted to save up." He kissed Miles again, deeply. "Besides," he added, breathless, "nothing compares to being with you anymore."

Miles smiled to himself at that, fingers still playing over the hand Phoenix had closed over the lubricant. Phoenix pushed himself up on his arms until he was sitting with his back resting against the pillows, and he pulled Miles up by the arms over his crossed legs until he was straddling them, balancing on his shins. The tube was finally warm enough to be pliable, and Phoenix unscrewed the cap and squeezed a dollop into his hands, rubbing them together to warm it. Miles took in a sharp breath; the rubbing was releasing the familiar, volatile smell, and his cock twitched in Pavlovian response. Phoenix's own erection was straining painfully against his stomach, but he ignored it and pulled Miles closer by the forearm, raising him up on his knees and resting his own head on Miles' chest. Miles was shaking; he grasped Phoenix's shoulder tightly, supporting himself. Phoenix supported him with a hand on his side, and slid his dominant fingers behind Miles' balls, pressing against the nerve just behind in teasing and earning a sudden sharp gasp and nails digging into his shoulder. Miles rose up further on his knees and grasped Phoenix's other shoulder as well.

"Tell me if it hurts, okay?"

Miles swallowed. "Trust me, I will."

"Right, silly of me to ask."

Phoenix teased the ring of muscle around Miles' entrance with a lubed fingertip, and Miles inhaled sharply, fingers tense. He slid his forefinger in slowly, and Miles inhaled softly, shifting, adjusting to the intrusion. He was fully relaxed and trusting, breathing rhythmically, almost meditatively, but he was still tight and God, so hot, almost burning. Phoenix pushed his finger in to the knuckle, allowed Miles to adjust, and pulled out just enough to start pushing in the second finger. Miles moaned softly and took in a sharp breath, stiffening momentarily—Phoenix froze, allowing him to relax, to get used to this—then relaxed, pushing against Phoenix's fingers until Phoenix was buried to the knuckles again. He pulled out slightly and curled his fingers to stroke the nub he knew he would find there, soft and—ah, there it was—and Miles hissed sharply, digging his nails into Phoenix's shoulders and moaning as Phoenix continued to rub his prostate. As Miles relaxed more and started to push back, Phoenix started to scissor his fingers as he slid in and out, increasing width of movement until Miles dug his fingers into his shoulder again.

"Okay." He wet his tongue; his voice steadied. "I'm ready."

Phoenix desperately wanted to shove himself into Miles _now_—his cock was burning, straining with the transferred warmth and grasp on his fingers—but he kept still, stroking Miles' flank with his thumb.

"You're sure?"

"Wright, you are not _that big_; I want this. _Now_."

"I have no objections to this."

"You know…" Miles gasped softly, almost disappointedly, as Phoenix pulled his fingers out of him and squeezed more lube into his hands, rubbing it rapidly. "If you can ever get through sex without courtroom references, I will be shocked."

Phoenix chuckled and rubbed the lube onto his own cock, taking in a sharp breath of pleasure, for all that the lube was still cool.

"Sorry. I can't resist. Neither can you."

"I am not _nearly_ as bad as you."

"Well, if it bothers you so much…" Phoenix grinned impishly, wiped the excess lube on the sheets—which gained a disapproving look from Miles—and leaned back against the pillows, crossing his arms behind his head. "We can stop."

"This isn't funny, Wright."

"I think it is."

"You want this as badly as I do."

Miles was right, of course. Phoenix's erection was straining painfully, and it was taking every ounce of willpower not to grab Miles by the hips and jam him down on his cock. Phoenix clenched his interlaced fingers.

"We are not playing this game," said Miles. "This is childish."

Phoenix just smirked in reply and crossed his arms. Miles sighed heavily and crossed his own arms, still balancing up on his knees over Phoenix's legs, and tapped his finger against his arm.

"You do realize how idiotic we look right now."

Miles was still right, of course: two men, naked, in bed together with engorged erections flat against their stomachs, leaking pre-cum, staring each other down. Miles was leaking lube out of his arse. A drop splattered on Phoenix's knee—hot—and Phoenix's cock twitched in reply.

"Say you want me."

Miles sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. "Oh God, I need your throbbing manhood in me; oh God, oh God, I need you now; I need you to fuck me into oblivion; oh please, oh baby, the thought of this makes me touch myself at night. Is that good enough?"

Phoenix laughed in spite of himself. Miles was damn good at keeping a straight, stern face even now, but Phoenix saw the corner of his mouth twitch. He ran his hand up the inside of Miles' thigh.

"Not bad." He pressed the tip of Miles' head with his finger, swiveled it around lightly. Miles hissed sharply and clenched his forearm. "Maybe needs a little more feeling."

Miles grabbed Phoenix's balls—hard—and dug his nails in just deep enough to cause a jolt of pure sensation—pain or pleasure, Phoenix wasn't sure—up Phoenix's back. Phoenix yelled in surprise and clenched the sheets as Miles leaned over him threateningly, feral, supporting himself against the headboard with his free hand.

"Fuck me." Edgeworth's voice was calm, dangerously quiet. "Now."

Phoenix squirmed away, but Miles' grip on his balls tightened threateningly. He swallowed. For all that he was mildly terrified, he had never been more turned on in his entire life.

"Y-yes, sir."

Miles released him and Phoenix sighed, arching his eyebrows and straightening into a comfortable sitting position, back resting against the pillows. He had not realized how much he had slid down onto his back. Miles was smirking with a self-satisfaction that, in other circumstances, would have been infuriating, but now was just incredibly arousing. Phoenix pulled him over his crossed legs by his hips and held his own cock up at a good angle, steadying Miles as he slowly impaled himself, groaning, the smirk disappearing as his eyes fluttered shut and he lost himself in pleasure. Phoenix's eyes half-closed; he watched Miles take him into his own body, moaned with the exquisite heat and tightness and smoothness engulfing his cock. Miles eventually maneuvered his legs so they locked around Phoenix's waist, and sheathed himself to the hilt. Phoenix's eyes fluttered open, and he stroked Miles' cheek until he half-opened his eyes. The gray of his eyes was a sliver surrounding a pool of black. Phoenix leaned back and drew Miles down with him, hand threaded through his hair, and kissed him languidly, deeply, then nuzzled his cheek with his own and grasped him tightly. Miles grasped back, fingers digging into Phoenix's hair. They were crushed together, locked perfectly, close as it was possible for any two people to be.

Phoenix sighed happily and tiled his chin up enough to kiss Miles softly, over and over, as he ran his fingers through Miles' hair lovingly. Miles kissed him back with equal softness and turned his head to stare at the long mirror bolted to Phoenix's Ikea wardrobe. Phoenix started nuzzling his neck, kissing, murmuring that he loved Miles, loved him so much, and traced designs on his back, tilting his own head and resting his cheek against Miles' neck, staring in the direction Miles was. Phoenix knew he would never forget it; it would forever be carved into his mind: the silhouette dimly lit by the ambient light allowed through the curtains, he and Miles crushed so close together, Miles' legs split wide so no expanse of skin would be denied contact, the articulation and movement of muscle as they settled together, breathed together. Phoenix kissed Miles' collar and turned his head back to the mirror, resting his cheek in Miles' neck again.

"We're beautiful."

Miles stared at him in the mirror, eyes still heavy-lidded, face unreadable. After a long while he turned, taking Phoenix's jaw and turning his head with him, and kissed Phoenix on the forehead. He started kissing down his cheekbone, kissed him breathlessly on the mouth a few times, and drew back, drawing out a little bit, staring down at their crotches. He thrust forward with a moan and screwed his eyes shut.

"Move," he murmured quietly. He drew back and thrusted a little deeper, a little harder. "Move. Move."

Phoenix grasped Miles' hips and ground up, hard, synchronizing his movements with his partner's. Miles had by far the most freedom of movement, but Phoenix met his down-thrusts with a small upward thrust of his own and ground his hips. Miles grasped Phoenix's shoulders to steady himself and threw his head back, moaning low in his throat, drawn out, as Phoenix thrust up and ground into his prostate. Miles maintained that angle, half-thrusting, half-gyrating, grinding in cycles, and his moaning became rhythmic with their thrusts, ebbing with the wave and crest of their hips. These intimate, unrestrained noises from Miles drove Phoenix mad, and he closed his eyes, moaning himself, a little louder, but still losing himself in the soft sounds of Miles' ecstasy. To know that he was giving Miles—restrained Miles, tormented Miles, _his_ Miles—so much pleasure and release was too much. They moved together like an ocean system, one fluid body riding on waves, ebbing and flowing, cresting and falling, momentum transferred smoothly from one body to the next.

There is a problem in not masturbating much: one's stamina decreases, sometimes more sharply than expected. Phoenix already felt himself cresting to the point of orgasm, felt the knot in his lower abdomen tighten exquisitely, all of his nerves along his back and arms and shoulders crackle with potential. He forced it back, bought himself a little time as he was about to go over the edge, but he was still close. He rested his forehead on Miles' neck, grasping his flanks, and stared sidelong at them in the mirror. Stared at Miles riding him with his head bowed, eyes closed, hips moving in delicious, grinding circles, moans and breaths halting in pleasure. Muscles moving beneath skin, hips and back and arse and _oh God that should have waited—_

"Miles," Phoenix murmured. His eyes fluttered shut and he took a sharp breath. Flooding with pleasure to the point of numbness, balancing on the edge, suspended—"Miles, I—ahh…"

Time suspended. Every nerve in Phoenix's body overloaded, the surface tension broke, and everything flooded over: a torrent of the purest sublime essence crashed through his body, rooted in his abdomen, running along the length of his cock. Phoenix tilted his head back and heard a soft, strangled gasp escape from his own throat. His cock twitched; the last of his semen flowed into Miles, and he collapsed back against the pillows, body humming with residual hypersensitivity.

Miles brushed his hair out of his face. Phoenix opened his eyes, realizing that Miles had stopped moving, and that he was still loosely grasping his flanks. Miles had yet to come; his cock was leaking, but still straining, still unrelieved. Though a sedative was flowing through his body, making him want to fall asleep, Phoenix sat up, drew Miles closer to him, and ground encouragingly, taking hold of his cock. Miles inhaled in pleasure and closed his eyes, briefly ghosting his hand over Phoenix's, and grasped Phoenix's shoulders again, moving, grinding almost desperately. Miles was close, at least; Phoenix knew he would not stay erect much longer, and he wanted Miles to feel all the pleasure he could possibly give.

Phoenix grasped Miles' flank with his free hand, other hand still pumping slowly, skillfully, knowing how to play over Miles' sensitivities, and rested his forehead on Miles' shoulder, smiling, free fingers playing up his ribs. It still felt wonderful, but his peak was coming down; it was more of a sustained, pleasurable massage than a building tension he felt now. He closed his eyes in bliss.

"Faster," Miles whispered. His voice was becoming strangled. Phoenix's eyes fluttered open, and he obliged, pumping harder, lifting his head from Miles' shoulder to achieve a better angle. He considered conserving his energy, but Miles' halting gasps egged him to stroke faster, to give his all in one short burst. The gasps became harsher, more halting, edged with soft, light moans; Miles moaned Phoenix's name in quiet fragments, and then gasped, breath catching in his throat, froze, head thrown back—

Miles' body clenched around Phoenix's cock. Phoenix felt the shudder, the spasms, echoed through his partner's body. Semen oozed out of Miles' cock, ran warm down the blade of Phoenix's hand. Miles' body finally went slack, gasping, head still hanging back. Chest rising and falling against Phoenix's.

Silence but for breathing. Phoenix licked the semen off his hand; as unsavory as it tasted, he savored the aspect that was _Miles_, and tried to lean down to clean Miles' cock, to no avail; it was impossible to lean that far from this position. He groped blindly for a tissue and cleaned his partner off gently, then threw the tissue into the bedside trash and grabbed Miles—hard—holding him close.

They stayed like that for a long time, shaking, breathing each other in, nerves humming, flooded with drowsy, absolute contentment. Phoenix had long since gone limp, and he finally pulled out of Miles and cleaned all the lube off himself as Miles crawled under the sheets next to him. Phoenix threw the tissue out and crawled under the sheets as well, curling up against Miles, brushing his hair out of his face lovingly. They threaded their arms around each other, Miles' around Phoenix's waist, Phoenix's around Miles' shoulders, and remained that way, half-asleep, for minutes that felt like hours.

"Okay, that was really good," Phoenix finally murmured.

Miles laughed dryly. "I would say that is an understatement." He was tracing designs on Phoenix's back with his fingertips, playing across the skin like an instrument. "Do you think you're going to have the stamina to go again?"

Phoenix laughed quietly and brushed his hair back out of his face. "You're going to have to give me a minute."

"We have all afternoon."

"I'm twenty-six; I think I can manage another go or two in an afternoon." He kissed Miles on the forehead and snuggled closer to him, smiling, soaking in his flushed warmth and musk. "Besides, you inspire me to great efforts. I can move mountains with you by my side."

"Oh, so sleeping with me now requires some sort of Herculean effort?"

"Who said anything about sleeping?"

Edgeworth smirked and rolled his eyes, then closed them, resting his head on the pillow. "Touché, Wright."

"Yes, I guess 'sleeping' with you requires some sort of Herculean effort. It's hard not to grab you and fuck your brains out."

Edgeworth gave Phoenix a flat look. It was the look that clearly said 'You are an idiot'; Phoenix had seen it far too many times in and out of court. He smiled awkwardly and scratched the back of his head.

"Right." Miles closed his eyes again and rested his head on Phoenix's shoulder. "At least I have brains to fuck out in the first place."

Phoenix punched Edgeworth in the shoulder, half-laughing, and mumbled, "You're an ass."

Miles smirked and snorted quietly. "I know."

They stayed like that for a while, Phoenix smiling and feeling profoundly comfortable and safe for the first time in days, watching Edgeworth doze, still smirking softly. He brushed Edgeworth's hair out of his eyes and stroked his back, eyes half-lidded, lost in thought.

He had lost his badge. He was a disgraced ex-lawyer. Everything he had busted his ass for was gone. And none of it was his fault.

He still had the people most important to him in the entire world.

_Everything is going to be all right, isn't it?  
_

_No matter how long it takes, I can keep going if I have you with me. No matter how dark it gets. The light that is you will always find me in the darkness._

_I'm not afraid._

He was already recovering. Phoenix smirked and none-too-subtly bumped his thigh into Miles' crotch, noting that Miles was already half-erect as well. Miles batted his knee away.

"If you're going to take revenge on me for grabbing your balls, at least wait until I'm more awake."

"You seem plenty awake to me."

Miles opened one eye. Phoenix knew his smirk was sleazy; it was hurting his face, but damned if he could make it go away. Miles closed his eyes and snorted softly, smiling. He shook his head and pulled Phoenix in close.

"Fine." He wove his fingers through Phoenix's hair and kissed him, hard. They came up gasping. Miles smirked darkly and rested his forehead against Phoenix's. "But turnabout is fair play, Wright. This time, I'm going to be the one to take you for a ride."

* * *

_I don't need to rush to the end_

_I just need to keep going_

_It's okay if things unfold_

_One scene at a time1_

* * *

"Professor?"

Phoenix snapped out of his reverie so quickly he banged his thigh on the bottom of his desk. Clover rattled, but balanced himself with all the grace of an organic cat, distributing his weight on his paws. His lights were still lit red. Clockwork was chewing a piece of gum, head tilted to the side quizzically.

"Sorry." Phoenix ran his hand through his hair and shook his head, clearing it. He had stopped talking after saying that Professor Edgeworth's appeal to the Bar Association had failed, and had abridged other portions of his memory, but he had not realized how long he had paused glossing over this particular segue. A full minute, maybe more?

_God, I hope my face isn't red; it feels like it should be._

"I was, ah, trying to think of where to take this next." He scratched the back of his head. "There was a period of about… seven years it took everything to gel. A lot of other things happened during that time."

"Is that when you got married to Professor Edgeworth?"

"Wha—yes." He blinked; most students did not care enough about their professors to look up their CV or biography on the websites, and it was not something he or Edgeworth talked about as a matter of course during classes. He reflexively twisted the gold band on his left ring finger. "Miles—Edgeworth finished his sabbatical in Europe and moved back to LA, we got married—one of the first gay marriages legalized in Los Angeles, if I recall—I adopted a daughter, a—a lot happened." He exhaled slowly. "…the rest of the story—for your purposes—well, have you watched the tapings of the first jury trial? The Misham case?"

"Oh, yes, of course." She tilted her head. "You look really different with a hat on."

"Yeah." Phoenix ran his fingers through his hair reflexively. _And I had more hair back then, too; I should have shown it off more._ "I was going through a nihilistic, rebellious phase. Disillusioned, you might say, with the laurels and decorum of a system that had screwed me so hard." He shrugged. "Besides, there was no point in getting dressed up every day to play cards. It was kind of a break."

"Oh."

Phoenix glanced at the clock in the corner of his holo-screen; it was well past 5:00 PM. He sighed and interlaced his fingers, pressing them against his lips as he sat back in his chair. He rested his ankle on the opposite knee.

"The rest of the story occurred in the six months or so leading up to the jurist trial. A lot of my final ideas solidified; a lot of the evidence I needed for that first trial—that first demonstration of its necessity—was collected during that period."

"Apollo Justice, right?"

"Yes, him. He and his half-sister—my adoptive daughter—have a supernatural ability to sense when people are hiding something. Do you believe in the occult?"

"Well…" Clockwork thought for a moment. "Yes. But some peoples' ideas of 'the occult' are just plain wrong and stupid, so I guess it would depend on what specific aspect you mean. As a whole, psi and what is called the 'supernatural', yes."

"Right. Good. That makes this easier." Phoenix thought for a moment. "I have never had supernatural abilities of my own. Every time I was able to take advantage of the occult or psi phenomena, it was through somebody else. The Fey family can channel the dead. My ability to see when people are hiding something was entrusted to me through an amulet of their family's. The ability to read people so perfectly in poker—" Phoenix scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "—truth be told, that was all Trucy. She and Apollo lent me that ability. I worked through them. It was not until I had that opportunity that I could put this into action. That intuition, that ability to see the truth without the physical 'evidence' I had to rely on, was integral. I finally had the leverage I needed to reestablish my credibility, break through some boundaries, present reasons that our legal system was fractured. Incomplete. Hindered. Well, it still is now, but it wasn't all it could be then."

"But aren't there people who won't take that as evidence?"

"Oh yeah. Very much so. And that can be a problem, but… ah. Here." He sat up, leaned forward. "Maybe it would be easier if I just start off seven years from where we left off before…"

* * *

1 Yeah, _Kingdom Hearts_ in the house. I'm a weeaboo.

* * *


	5. Memory 04: The Goldberg Variations

**Memory 04: The Goldberg Variations**

O'Boyle's was one of the few pubs genuinely 'Irish enough' to satisfy Edgeworth's elitist European sensibilities. Phoenix had trouble differentiating between one greasy dish of fish and chips and another greasy dish of fish and chips, but O'Boyle's wasn't too far out of the way, and it was obscure and small enough to ensure they could have conversations undisturbed. He, Edgeworth, and Maya had sequestered the corner table, and after a couple of pints of Guinness Maya was even more argumentative than usual. Thankfully, that energy was currently aimed at Edgeworth, so Phoenix could sip at his pint and watch in amusement.

"You know how when people lose one sense, all their other senses get a lot sharper?" Maya was waving a French fry at Edgeworth pointedly. "Same goes for when you rely too much on one sense. All the other ones get duller. Seeing is believing for a lot of people. If there's concrete evidence, all their other senses are dulled to what may be the truth."

Edgeworth took a deep drink. "It is utterly impossible to be one-hundred percent sure of the truth."

"Absolutely." Phoenix snatched the fry Maya was jabbing at Edgeworth and ate it as she sputtered out a protest. "I used to think evidence would lead us to the truth one-hundred percent of the time, without question. And damned if it isn't important. Logic leads us ninety-nine percent of the way." He smashed his palm into the table, and the silverware clattered. Edgeworth caught the candle as it almost tipped over and gave Phoenix a disapproving look. "But sometimes, that is not where the _truth_ lies. We've become obsessed with the physical—the physical, which can be so easily duplicated and manipulated and forged—every other one of our senses and thought processes are left to atrophy. We've become incomplete problem-solving machines."

Maya leaned in toward Edgeworth and stage-whispered "He's just agreeing with you because he wants to get lucky tonight."

Edgeworth smirked into his drink. "Probably."

"Objection!" Phoenix reached unceremoniously over the table, almost knocking the candle over again, and grabbed Miles' left hand. The gold band around his ring finger glinted in the fire. "I can bang him—_any_ time I want. I have decisive evidence."

Edgeworth peeled Phoenix's fingers off. "You're drunk, Wright."

"I am not. I have had like—_three_ pints, that's it." He glanced at Edgeworth's half-empty glass, still his first one. "And why aren't you drinking more. You need to drink more."

"I'm on call tonight. I may need to drive somewhere."

"You're so responsible."

"Yeah, well, some of us have real jobs to worry about."

Phoenix pointed at him, but damn it, he was right. He picked up his glass again.

"Defense rests." _But I'm working on it, damn you. Asshole._

"I remember a certain age being discussed in a lot of law classes." Phoenix arched his eyebrows, wondering where the hell Edgeworth was going to prod _now_, but he realized he was resuming his argument with Maya. "When DNA analysis started being used in forensics, it revolutionized the field. It was a powerful tool, to be sure; ninety-nine of the time, it was accurate. It exonerated innocent men and put guilty men behind bars. But there was so much faith in the power of science—an experiment that is perfectly possible to mess up, or misread—that that one percent of the time, even in the face of every other scrap of evidence saying the case was one way—the jury ruled in favor of the DNA test. The DNA used in the test may have been recovered in a dubious manner, but the jury would only see the test. Not the circumstances leading up to it. Same came to be the problem with expert witnesses." His glasses glinted in the candlelight. He was assuming the same posture he did behind the prosecution's bench, the same ruthless, focused attention. "Call somebody an 'expert witness', place him in front of a bunch of uneducated people, and his word becomes gospel. The god of science blinded the juries. They stopped thinking for themselves. And to a large degree, detective work, the Sherlock Holmes legacy, was abandoned. Instead of becoming a powerful tool in the arsenal of forensic scientists, DNA evidence became the god, the trump, the absolute over-writer."

Phoenix and Maya were silent for a moment. Maya finally blurted, "Does this mean that you're starting to admit that spirit channeling might not be bullshit?"

"No."

Maya sighed rolled her eyes. "You almost had me convinced you knew what you were talking about for a moment there."

"Maya, come on. Even if he was admitting that, he wouldn't… admit it."

Miles laughed quietly behind his hand. The glint of gold caught Phoenix's eye again, mesmerizing. He never tired of seeing Miles smiling, relaxed, _happy_. Comparing _this_ Miles to the Miles Phoenix had encountered ten years ago still stunned him. It was as though the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. The SSRI he had finally consented to taking greatly helped to mediate his depression and melancholy, though God knows it had not disappeared completely. And that was only secondary to the prolonged effects of finally resolving the DL-6 case, among other factors. Phoenix knew he was integral in this transformation in direct and indirect ways, but it was a realization he kept to himself. Miles had already confirmed as much anyway.

Edgeworth's phone went off. He glanced at the caller ID, sighed, and flipped it open.

"Miles Edgeworth… yeah…" He sat up straight, suddenly all business. "Really. How long ago? … That long? Then why the hell didn't anybody call me? … And the trial is tomorrow?" He paused for a long time, eyes hard with thought. "Right. I should be there in an hour or so."

He hung up and sighed.

"Work?" asked Phoenix.

"Body was found in a condemned building, as if that isn't cliché enough."

"You're leaving now? Sure you don't want another pint?"

"I'm driving."

Phoenix nodded. Miles gathered up his jacket and kissed Phoenix quickly, murmuring that he loved him and he'd see him later, and nodded to Maya.

"Keep him out of trouble, would you?"

"No guarantees."

Miles smirked and waved over his shoulder before walking out of the pub. Phoenix sighed and continued to pick at his food.

"He left us with the check, didn't he." It wasn't a question.

"Yup."

"Bastard."

Phoenix reached for Miles' unfinished Guinness and downed it in one gulp. He slammed the glass back onto the table. Maya reached for the unfinished plate of food and started picking at the fries. Phoenix eyed it longingly.

"Can I have what's left of the fish?"

"Hell no."

* * *

"Ah, Mr. Edgeworth! You're earlier than I expected!"

Edgeworth nodded to Gumshoe, who was kneeling in the dust thick on the floor, pouring what looked like some sort of sealant to harden the footprints left behind. It smelled volatile, flammable. Edgeworth removed his fuchsia jacket and draped it over one of the sawhorses forming the police barrier.

"Traffic was good."

He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled the sleeves up. It was hot in the building—painfully nondescript; the most accurate description Edgeworth could muster was 'warehouse'—humid, dust sticking to every surface. He looked around. There was a gurney near the entrance with a body strapped to it, respectfully covered in a dark sheet. Other than that, the top floor of the warehouse looked unremarkable. It was condemned, and construction equipment was lying about in various states of disarray. None of the workers had been allowed back on the site after the body was found, but they were being kept in a rest trailer nearby for questioning. The _real_ show, he was told, was in the sub-basement. The body had been found down there.

"The body was photographed thoroughly before being moved, correct?"

"Of course, sir."

"Is it clear for me to go take a look around?"

"Yes, sir. That scaffolding looks rotten and worn out, but I climbed it myself just a bit ago and it held up just fine."

Edgeworth looked in the direction Gumshoe had nodded. The dust suddenly stopped, giving way to a visible length of wooden platform, and beyond that, dropped into darkness. Edgeworth walked over, careful to disturb the dust as little as possible. The wooden scaffold descended three stories down into the sub-basement of the warehouse. He peered into the darkness, claustrophobia rising up uncomfortably—it looked so much like an elevator shaft—and swallowed, squaring his shoulders and pushing his glasses up his nose. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped onto the first platform.

The ground lurched under him.

Edgeworth's mind went blank. The shaking, the tremor up reverberated through his shoes and into his bones—

"_This is my oxygen! You're taking it!"_

—he collapsed to his hands and knees, trying to steady himself—somewhere, seemingly far away, Detective Gumshoe was bellowing for him to jump, to jump, but he couldn't move—

With a sickening crunch that reverberated up the entire scaffold, it collapsed. And, with the falling motion, Edgeworth's mind snapped clear again.

"Mr. Edgeworth! Grab something! I can't reach you!"

Edgeworth was already falling on his hands and knees, like a cat. Three stories. He had to stop his fall, or he was going to die. He thrust his hands out, grabbing down for something—anything—and a hideous, tearing pain seared up his forearm. He felt whatever was stuck in there break off, snap, and he bellowed, still reaching out for anything—anything—splinters and jagged wood ripped through the skin of his palms, under his fingernails—and then—

—_the ground—_

At the last second, Edgeworth shoved forward against the oncoming concrete, absorbing some of the shock of his fall by bending his joints. An excruciating crunch reverberated in several locations—he felt his right elbow shove out of its joint, felt something tear through his thigh, felt a hideous pain pierce his left hand, snap a bone on the way out. His glasses shattered as his face hit; glass ground into his cheekbones. His nose broke. Crunches everywhere, dulled by deferred pain. He screamed in agony and collapsed onto his side, curling, cheek smashing into a white line chalked into the concrete floor. The body outline. Dim light. Detective Gumshoe bellowing from three stories up, saying he was going to get help, to hold on, please hold on.

Agony. Edgeworth tried to move his right hand, but it stayed dead, heavy—he turned over and stared down at his right arm. His elbow was pulled out of its joint, bent at a sickening angle. A jagged spar of rough wood was jammed into his forearm, buried deep in muscle, oozing fat and blood—bile rose to the back of his throat. Vomit. Fight it back, bite it. Blood everywhere. His blood. White shirt torn and sticky, wet, fresh red. He tasted blood in his mouth when he yelled; his nose was shattered, oozing, dripping onto his cravat. He moaned and curled to the other side, tried to move his left hand—an excruciating pain shot up his arm as he did that, and he screamed again, opened his eyes, saw through tears that an industrial nail was sticking out of the back of his hand. Bile—he curled over further and vomited on the concrete next to him, shaking, moaning. He could not roll onto his back to see what further damage had been done—was terrified to, was terrified to move.

Halogen lights shining from above the scaffold shaft. Yelling. Familiar voices, unfamiliar voices. The light shined into his face. He closed his eyes; heard somebody yell that he was moving. Somebody yelled to get a pulley ready. Where was that damn ambulance?

More shouting. Sirens, seemingly far away, growing closer. The crunching of booted feet running into the warehouse. More talking, more flashlights over his body, in his face. Agony. Help, hurry. He moaned, bit back a sob. He heard something secure, lock into place with an industrial clang; a flat, board-like silhouette with a human figure clinging to it was descending slowly on a rope. Neared. The figure turned a light on; shined it on him. He groaned.

"Mr. Edgeworth?" The voice was female, worried but professional. "Can you hear me?"

Edgeworth groaned and nodded weakly, biting his lip. The woman jumped off the gurney—strapped with medical supplies—and pulled on a pair of purple nitrile gloves, tilted Edgeworth's head up with her fingertips. Shined a light in his eyes. Edgeworth hissed and turned away, groaning quietly.

Her eyes were blue. Pale blue, sky blue, not deep blue like Phoenix's. Phoenix. Phoenix, where are you?

"He's conscious!" she yelled up the shaft. "I'm going to need some help here!"

Another figure clipped itself onto the rope with a carabineer and slid down smoothly, stepping off, kneeling down to inspect Edgeworth as well. A man. They both wore the same navy blue shirts and well-worn boots, both had the same efficient, professional care about them. EMTs. He forgot how close to the hospital they were.

"Multiple lacerations along the extremities, wood shoved into his arm, nail in his hand, looks like he broke his nose," said the woman. "Haven't seen the front yet. Right elbow is dislocated, left looks okay. Probably has several breaks."

"We need to turn him over."

For all the practiced ease with which the pair lofted Edgeworth and turned him onto his back, rolling him onto the gurney, pain stabbed through his limbs. He groaned pitifully, biting his lip, breathing harshly in and out of his nose. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, wake himself up. Phoenix. Phoenix, where are you?

" 'Phoenix'?" the woman asked. Edgeworth did not realize he had been speaking out loud. "What does that mean?"

"No idea. Compound open fracture in the left thigh." The man held his small flashlight between his teeth and ripped open a gauze package. "We need to stop the bleeding."

'Compound open…' Edgeworth knew that term. His brain dodged it, tried to slip around it, but he inclined his head slightly, stared down his body. Bone sticking out of his pants, milk-white, a mess of fuchsia fabric and bone-white and blood. His bone. His bone had shattered and torn through his muscle and skin.

Edgeworth passed out.

* * *

Phoenix was stretched out on his and Miles' living room couch with Maya and Pess watching _Hannibal_ for the umpteenth time when Pess suddenly started whining and jumped off the couch, turning anxious circles. The humans exchanged confused looks.

"Pess?" Phoenix patted the couch next to him, but she kept whining and pacing. "Come here, girl."

Pess whined, drawn out, and barked sharply. Maya tumbled off the couch and grabbed her in a tight hug, smoothing down her fur. The poor dog was quaking. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Pess', stayed that way for a moment. She withdrew sharply and stared at Phoenix, eyes wide.

"Miles."

Phoenix's heart stopped. Maya looked scared, and he knew by now that if she was scared by something odd, he damn well better be too. Pess broke the silence, whining again, and ducked out from under Maya's arms. She ran to the door and started barking, then ran back to the living room, then back to the entryway, anxious, helpless.

_The Goldberg Variations _played on the television. Dr. Lecter swayed with it, lost in the music, writing to Clarice, playing to her photographs on the mantle of his piano. It was one of those classical pieces Edgeworth liked to play while he was reading. So relaxed. In Phoenix's mind, because of this movie, always bloodstained. But so relaxed.

Phoenix's cell phone rang. He groped for it, furrowed his eyebrows when he realized it was Gumshoe. Pressed 'answer'.

"Hello? Detective?"

"Mr. Wright! Mr. Edgeworth's been in an accident! We're going to the hospital right now!"

Phoenix sat up straight. He heard a muted siren in the background, as though heard from inside a vehicle, heard voices speaking urgently. Maya was staring at him, face pale, silently asking what was wrong.

"What—what happened? Car wreck?"

"A scaffold fell out from under him at the crime scene. He fell three stories." Phoenix's stomach suddenly felt like ice. "He's—he's beat up real bad, pal. I don't know if you want to see this."

"Where are you taking him?"

Maya had already jumped up and was gathering their things. Pess jumped off the couch and followed her nervously, whining.

"Hotti Clinic—Hickfield Clinic, whatever the hell it's called now. It's closest."

"I'm coming right now."

Gumshoe sighed. "Right. I just thought I'd warn ya, pal. It's… it's not pretty. He's all broken up and bloody."

"Is he okay?"

Gumshoe paused for a moment. Phoenix did not know whether he felt more like passing out or vomiting

"He's gonna be, pal. He was conscious when they first found him, finally passed out. Lost a lot of blood, but he's getting a pack of synthetic heme right now. Paramedics say he kept calling for you. Well, for 'Phoenix', and I assume he didn't mean the bird or the city."

A pause. Phoenix screwed his eyes shut, fighting back nausea and fear.

_The Goldberg Variations_ played on.

"Frankly, pal, I'm glad he's passed out; he was in a lot of pain. His bones are all broken and one's stickin' out of his leg and—"

"—that's enough—"

"—wood stickin' out of him—"

"—stop!"

Gumshoe went silent. Phoenix had buried his head in his hand, breathing harshly though his teeth. _Don't vomit. Get up. Go to the hospital. He's the one who needs you to be strong._

"I'm coming down immediately," he finally said. He hung up the phone and shoved it into his pocket, started toward the entryway, did a double-take, and walked back toward Trucy's room. He hesitated a moment before knocking, wary that he would be interrupting something if his suspicions were correct. There was a furtive silence in answer. Trucy yelled "Just a moment!"

"Trucy, it's Daddy. I need to talk to you guys right now."

It seemed to take hours for Trucy to finally open the door, flushed, looking somewhat sheepish. Her dress looked wrinkled. Pearl was sitting on her bed, hands folded in her lap, shifting uncomfortably. He knew that if he asked if he had interrupted something with his magatama in hand, the room would plunge into darkness and multiple locks would chain the girls in. Whatever. This was most definitely not the time to even lean toward that territory. He sighed.

"I'm sorry to interrupt—" Trucy sputtered that he didn't interrupt anything, but Phoenix held up his hand. "—but Papa Miles has been in an accident, and I'm going to the hospital to go see him."

The girls' eyes grew wide. Silence.

"…is he okay?" Trucy finally asked. "What happened?"

"He—he fell off a three-story scaffold at the crime scene." _Breathe. Stay calm._ Phoenix ran his fingers through his hair. "He's hurt pretty bad. He broke a lot of bones, it sounds like. I'm going to go see him now."

"We're going too."

"Not right now." Phoenix narrowed his eyes. Trucy was glaring at him with her hands on her hips. Pearl had squared her shoulders and was glowering. "Later. They won't let us all into the emergency room."

"We're going."

"No." Phoenix gave the girls the sternest, hardest glare he could muster. "You're not."

* * *

"Pal!" Gumshoe yelled as soon as Phoenix burst through the automatic doors to the hospital. The girls were jogging several yards behind him. He had his hands shoved in his hoodie's pocket and was glowering beneath his cap. He looked up at Gumshoe, glaring, eyes hard. Stopped. He was trying to remember the last time Phoenix looked this pissed. It was mildly terrifying.

"Uh… look, pal… I…" Gumshoe wet his tongue. Phoenix kept staring at him. "I'm so sorry. I swear, I don't know what happened; that scaffold was sturdy when I stood on it. I climbed all up and down it."

"I know you're not at fault." Maya, Pearl, and Trucy stopped behind Phoenix, panting. They looked as bewildered and worried as Gumshoe felt. "Where is he?"

"Emergency room."

Phoenix started striding toward the double-doors to the emergency room, but Gumshoe grabbed his shoulder. Phoenix tried to peel his hands off, but Gumshoe's hand tightened.

"Look, pal…" His breath caught; Phoenix was glaring at him again. Hard. "…I know you're worried about him, but the doctors have to work on him. They wouldn't let nobody back there."

"I'm his husband," Phoenix said quietly.

"Don't matter. Let them work right now. It's best for Mr. Edgeworth if you give the doctors space."

Phoenix paused for a long time, glowering. Gumshoe could feel the girls watching both of them with baited breath. Phoenix finally relaxed, ducked out of Gumshoe's grip to go sit on one of the waiting room chairs. He buried his head in his hands.

"Daddy…"

Trucy was standing awkwardly back, twisting her toe on the ground, hand drifting toward her chest protectively as though there was a talisman there. Pearl was biting her thumbnail and staring up at Phoenix through her lashes pensively. Maya had clenched both fists by her sides.

"Pal," Gumshoe finally said, "I need to talk to you."

Phoenix was silent for a long time, head still buried in his hands. Gumshoe thought he heard a soft sob. Finally, Phoenix looked up, eyes damp but hard, determined. He nodded toward the seat next to him, not unkindly. Gumshoe took his offer, looking around the waiting room, seeing who had shown up there. The standoff broken, the girls gathered around him, Maya pulling up a seat in front of the men for himself, Pearl and Trucy sitting cross-legged on the floor. Trucy removed her top hat and rested her head on Phoenix's leg. Phoenix stroked her hair absentmindedly.

"I'm sorry I've been cross." His voice was hoarse. "Go ahead, Gumshoe. You can speak as frankly as you want."

"Somethin' ain't right about this whole thing, pal."

"I fail to see anything right with this whole thing, but continue."

"Well, Mr. Edgeworth's alive, isn't he?"

For a second, Gumshoe expected Wright to punch him. His eyes were hard again, glowering. He finally closed his eyes and nodded.

"Yes, you're right." When he opened his eyes, he looked on the verge of tears. His voice remained shockingly steady. "Please, continue."

"I—I don't think this was an accident, pal. I think somebody tried to kill Mr. Edgeworth."

Phoenix's eyes widened.

"A rotting staircase fell out from under him, and you assume it's attempted homicide?"

"I swear to God, pal, that staircase was sturdy when I tried it out. I stood on it myself, stomped up and down it, and I weigh more than he does. Didn't shake at all. I'd never let Mr. Edgeworth stand on something that I thought was unsafe. Besides, it's not like he'd listen to me anyway."

Maya's eyebrow twitched. She looked at Phoenix, who was staring at Gumshoe intently. He rested his chin in his curled hand and furrowed his eyebrows, automatically slipping into his lawyer persona.

"If it really was that sturdy, and it gave way as soon as Edgeworth stepped on it, somebody must have weakened the staircase somehow."

"Nobody's has access to the crime scene but people from the precinct. I've seen to that myself. Or people from the prosecutor's office."

"Who's the defense on this case?"

"Kristoph Gavin, sir." Gumshoe scratched the back of his head. "I guess he'd be allowed to look around the crime scene too."

Phoenix's eyes went dangerously hard. Gumshoe scratched the back of his head.

"Look, pal, I know you're protective of Mr. Edgeworth and all, but you and Mr. Gavin are friends, aren't you?" Trucy suddenly jerked her head up, staring at Phoenix warily, but to Gumshoe's eyes he had not done anything shocking. "And he and Mr. Edgeworth may not get along so well, but he'd never go so far as to try to hurt him."

"Were there any tools found at the scene of the crime? Handsaws, corrosive reagents, anything?"

"It was a condemned building, pal. Of course there were. Tons of them."

Phoenix went silent, still holding his chin and furrowing his eyebrows. Trucy leaned back on her hands and stared at him suspiciously. Maybe she knew something Gumshoe didn't; he would have to talk to her about it later.

"Oh thank God!"

Gumshoe and Phoenix looked toward the entrance. A very pregnant and frantic-looking Maggey was striding toward them, carrying a sleepy two-year-old Toby on her hip. She was dressed in her casual clothes, cargo pants and a sleeveless hoodie that accentuated her stunning, sculpted arms, badge and gun on her belt. She set Toby on the seat next to Wright and hugged Gumshoe fiercely, burying her head in his chest. He sighed and grasped her back.

"Maggey, what are you doing here?"

Maggey drew back and punched him in the upper arm. Gumshoe yelled "Ow!" and drew back, rubbing where he punched. He heard Maya giggle behind him.

"I was at the office doing paperwork, and I heard there was an accident at the crime scene and you were being taken here in an ambulance. I thought you had gotten your stupid ass killed."

"No…" Gumshoe scratched the back of his head, arm still throbbing. Damn, she could pack a punch, and that wasn't even full force. "That was Mr. Edgeworth that was hurt. I'm fine. I just rode in the ambulance with him here."

Maggey paused awkwardly, looked at Wright, who was staring at the ground. She turned back to Gumshoe and covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes were asking the question she did not dare to ask aloud in current company. Gumshoe shook his head and mouthed 'He's fine' before gathering Maggey up in his arms again, smoothing down her hair. She was shaking. He heard her sniff hard and she pulled away a little to wipe her eyes with her hand. Gumshoe pulled back a little to look at her face, still holding her narrow shoulders, dwarfed in his hands. Her mouth was firm, but her eyes were wet.

"Maggey…"

She shook her head and waved her hand dismissively, muttering something about hormones before hugging Gumshoe tightly again, burying her cheek in his chest. He stroked her hair absent-mindedly, looking over her head at Wright, staring at the ground, fighting back tears, at his little son curled up asleep in the chair next to him. His hands tightened around her. He could not imagine the pain and fear and uncertainty and helplessness Wright was feeling right now; the thought of Maggey being in Mr. Edgeworth's position drove agonized fear into the pit of his stomach. He held her tight, silently glad she was not the one who had fallen, selfishly reveling in her vitality and life.

"Gumshoe," Maya said quietly, "you should probably explain to Maggey your suspicions."

"What?" Maggey pulled back and stared at him. "What suspicions?"

Gumshoe took her hands and lead her toward the chairs next to Wright, sitting next to him, offering her the seat next to himself. He quickly explained the reasoning he had to suspect that Mr. Edgeworth's 'accident' was not. By the time he was done explaining, Phoenix was listening to them carefully, face unreadable, and Maggey was livid.

"We've got to investigate the crime scene!" She stood up, starting toward the door. "Watch Toby for me. I'm going to go test the wood samples."

"No!"

Gumshoe grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Maggey whirled around, glaring at him in an all-too-familiar, stubborn manner. He sighed.

"I'll go." He held up his hand as she started to sputter, before she could say that she wasn't made of glass, that she did not need to be protected, that she was damn well a full detective as much as he was. "Maggey, we've talked about this." He touched her swollen stomach. Eight months pregnant. The child they had created together in a moment of loving passion was beneath his hand. "Once you've popped this little one out, you can go running after bad guys and saving the world all you want. But not until then. Please."

Maggey's eyes were smoldering. Gumshoe sighed heavily, trying to think of something to say to preserve her ego, but—

"Ah! Mrs. Gumshoe! I see you're back for your checkup already!"

They turned. A pink-haired, snaggle-toothed man in ragged clothes and a yellowed lab coat was scratching himself and leering lecherously at Maggey's stomach. His eyes darted over her pregnant breasts, and his fingers curled reflexively. Gumshoe glared at him and tightened his hands over her shoulders possessively, drawing her close. Maggey rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips.

"_Detective_ Gumshoe to you, _doctor_, or Detective Byrde, and _no_, I am not back for a checkup."

"Too bad." The man stepped forward, scratching himself, and Gumshoe caught a whiff of his body odor. His crop of pink hair looked greasy, dull. He wondered how long it had been since he bathed. "I do so love a motherly figure." His fingers curled again. "Are you going to need any help with the delivery?"

Gumshoe stepped forward, hunching his shoulders threateningly. "Excuse me, pal—"

Somebody grabbed his arm. Maya stood on tiptoe and whispered into his ear, "He's insane. Let it go."

"Oh, Maya!" The 'doctor' wiggled his eyebrows, grinning. His hands curled reflexively again, and Gumshoe saw Maya recoil out of the corner of his eyes. "You're a sight for sore eyes!"

"Fuck off. We don't have time for this."

Gumshoe automatically glanced toward Toby to see if he was picking up any of this language. He was fast asleep, and Phoenix was brushing his messy, brown hair absent-mindedly. He glared back at the doctor. Insane or no, he desperately wanted to punch this guy in the mouth. He noticed over his head that a _real_ doctor had emerged from the emergency room's double-doors, paused, and started walking toward them.

"Spirited, huh?" The man leaned in toward Maya and held his hand over his mouth as though telling a secret. "I like them spirited."

Maya looked ready to kick the man in the balls. Her fists were clenched by her sides, and she was glowering. Gumshoe hoped that she would do it.

"Oh, hey, there you are, doc."

The doctor Gumshoe had seen approaching clapped the strange man on the shoulder. She steered the man toward the opposite end of the waiting room.

"I've been looking all over for you."

"You have?" The man turned and arched his eyebrows lecherously at her. "Why, Dr. Mask, do you need a private consult?"

"Actually, yes." She pointed toward a bored-looking man in scrubs leaning on a door behind the reception counter. "Nurse Cogan here will take you. Go on, now."

The man looked defeated. "You always send me with the male nurses."

"Don't be sexist." She gave him another clap on the shoulder and sent him toward the waiting nurse. "Go. Time is of the essence."

The man wandered in the direction the doctor had indicated. The nurse clasped his shoulder and steered him firmly through the door. The doctor sighed and turned back to the group assembled around the chairs.

"I see you met 'The Doctor'."

Gumshoe stared back at her. "Doctor who?"

"Exactly." She shoved her hands into her lab coat pockets. Beneath she was dressed like the male lead in a Tim Burton movie, black suit and strange tie and combat boots with a white shirt. Her hair was tied back in a low tail. Her voice was the deepest Gumshoe had ever heard coming from a woman; it sounded strange coming from such a small frame. "Is there a Mr. Phoenix Wright somewhere in this motley crew?"

"Yes."

Trucy and Pearl stood aside. Phoenix was standing, staring hard at the doctor, hands in his pockets. She arched her eyebrows.

"Right, Mr. Edgeworth did say you'd look like a cross between a hobo and a college student."

Maya barked with laughter at that. Phoenix gave her a flat look before turning back to the doctor.

"So he's awake."

"Yes, and he requested to talk to you before he goes in for surgery."

Phoenix's eyes widened slightly. "…surgery?"

"He has several broken bones that will require surgery to place, severe nerve damage where he dislocated his elbow, nail through his hand too close to the radial nerve to warrant removal in the emergency room." Her eyes softened slightly as she beckoned to Wright. "He's going to be fine. He's a lucky bastard. Come on."

Phoenix followed on her heels eagerly. Gumshoe sighed and turned back to Maggey, glanced at the other three girls.

"I'll go investigate the crime scene." He pressed his fingertips to Maggey's lips as she started to protest. "Maggey, please. Just give me peace of mind. Sit this one out. All right?"

Maggey was pouting, glaring to the side with arms crossed, but any pouting on her part was a sign of concession. Gumshoe grabbed her shoulders and kissed her quickly on the forehead, murmuring that he loved her, and stopped to kiss his son on the forehead before backing out the door and yelling that he would be back soon. Maggey kept scowling after him, but Gumshoe could see that she was concerned.

"Try not to get yourself killed!"

* * *

"Mr. Edgeworth is incredibly lucky."

Phoenix was getting damn sick of hearing that. He just glared at Mask, or in her general direction; it wasn't personal. She did not seem to notice. She had an odd habit of not making eye contact when she talked, always staring a little to the side.

"If I may speak plainly." She stopped, glancing around. She and Phoenix were alone in the hallway. "Given that he fell three stories in a warehouse, I would expect his wounds to be far worse. I think his fall was broken by something, or somehow hindered."

Phoenix just stared. Mask turned, facing him fully.

"He landed on all fours. You seldom see that in accidents. It means he had time to right himself, to orient himself. Most humans cannot react that quickly in freefall. It saved his life. If he had fallen on his back, or head-first, he would be dead. Or worse. Paralyzed, a vegetable."

Phoenix's stomach lurched sickeningly. Miles, beautiful, proud, brilliant, strong Miles, dead, paralyzed, a vegetable… He swallowed painfully.

"I'm going to go talk to the surgeon." Mask grabbed the clipboard shelved in a clear slot outside the examination room door and opened the door slightly, nodded for Phoenix to go in. "I'll be back. He's doped up, so he may be a little loopy."

Phoenix nodded. He did not realize how dry his tongue was until he had to wet it to be able to reply.

"Thank you, doctor."

Mask nodded, waving her hand dismissively as though to say 'Don't worry about it,' and disappeared behind a door marked 'AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ONLY'. Phoenix sighed, steeling himself, and opened the examination room door further, stepped in, closed the door behind him.

His first thought was that he was damn glad Miles was 'doped up'. The bile rose sharply to his throat, and it took all of his willpower to force it back down. The smell of antiseptic and blood was nauseating. As he walked forward slowly more of Miles' wounds became evident. His bone was indeed sticking out of his leg, caught on the fuchsia fabric of his pants—Phoenix forced himself to look beyond it, to not focus on it—his shirt was bloody, the sleeves cut off. His right arm was twisted at a sickening angle, and a huge spar of wood was jammed into his forearm. Miles had his head resting to the other side, and Phoenix walked to that side of the table, pulling up a rolling chair.

Miles was staring at Phoenix dully, his pupils pinpricks. His cravat was sodden with blood, sticking to his neck. A cut under Miles' eye had been stitched up with wet, brown thread; it was already bruising purple and red. His nose was smashed, stuffed with gauze and splinted on either side. His face was ashen with past agony, but had since smoothed, relaxed in relief. His skin was scoured with smaller cuts, since dabbed clean. He smiled crookedly.

"I'm afraid I'm not much to look at right now."

Phoenix reached for his hand, on the verge of tears, but recoiled in horror; there was a huge nail driven through it, and his palm was cut to shreds. His wedding ring was soaked in blood. His eyes darted over Edgeworth's torn body, looking for somewhere, _anywhere_ to rest his hands, and finally set on his shoulder. Miles' head dropped forward as though he were trying to nuzzle Phoenix's hand, but he couldn't quite reach; Phoenix moved his hand to his cheek, stitches rough on his palm. Miles turned his head awkwardly and kissed Phoenix's palm.

"I can't move anything else. They've given nerve blocks to all my extremities."

The lump in Phoenix's throat was raw, painful. He stroked Miles' temple with his thumb, and his hand curled around the back of Miles' head, cupping it, and he finally lost it, bowing his forehead against Miles' and starting to cry brokenly.

_Paralyzed. Vegetable. Dead._

_Paralyzed. Vegetable. Dead._

'_He's in a lot of pain, pal—he keeps calling for you—'_

His tears splattered on Miles' cheek, and he hissed through his teeth, whining, high-pitched, drawn out. The thought of Miles trapped at the bottom of a hole, in agony, asking for him in delirium when he couldn't be there to comfort him, was too much. He buried his head in his hands and started sobbing brokenly.

_The Goldberg Variations _kept playing in his head.

"Phoenix…" Miles said softly. "I'm okay. Everything's okay."

Phoenix shook his head furiously, moaning "No… no…" incoherently. This was all his fault. He _knew_ somebody wanted to knock Miles off because they were getting too close to the truth, because they were gathering more evidence that pointed at Gavin. He desperately wanted to talk to Miles about Gumshoe's observations—Miles was his best friend, his confidant, the best person to talk to about something like this—but he did not want to get him worked up or worried before his surgery.

"Really, Wright." Though Phoenix did not look up, he could _hear_ the disapproving look in Miles' voice. "I knew you'd be in a state like this. That's why I wanted to talk to you. Calm down."

Phoenix was starting to hyperventilate. All of the emotion he had dammed up finally burst through, uncontrollable. He heard Miles sigh.

"Phoenix…"

"It's my fault." He gasped several times. "It's my fault, it's my fault, I'm so sorry, Miles, I'm so sorry, I'm so—"

He deteriorated into incoherent sobbing. He knew he looked a sight and was making a fool of himself, but he desperately needed this release. Miles sighed.

"You really haven't changed at all. I'm the one lying here injured, and you're the one who needs comforting."

Phoenix's voice hitched in shame. Miles was right, of course; this was beyond pathetic.

"Phoenix. Look at me."

It took Phoenix a while to compose himself enough to look up. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand like a child. Miles sighed and shook his head, barely, haltingly. The gauze in his nose was edging red, soaking through with blood.

"This is not your fault." He narrowed his eyes when Phoenix started to protest; it was amazing how stern and commanding Miles Edgeworth could be even when he was bloodied and broken and drugged to hell and back with painkillers. "You suspect foul play as I do. Gumshoe said that platform was sturdy. I—I had time to jump off. But I didn't. I froze up. If I had kept my wits about me, I could have made it off. I should have tested it. I should have been more wary."

"It's too dangerous."

"What is?"

"I can't keep you involved in this, trying to nail Gavin, trying to get my badge back. This—" Phoenix's eyes moved over Edgeworth's torn body, and he felt sick again. "—isn't worth it. I'd lose a hundred badges, a thousand, I don't care; they aren't worth anything next to you."

"You're awfully quick to make assumptions, Wright." Phoenix was sure if Miles could move, he would be wagging his finger at him like he did every time he said something stupid in court. "I've put a lot of people away over the years. A lot of people would want to knock me off."

"Miles, come on; you know damn well—"

"Shhh." Edgeworth smiled weakly at him. "I know, Wright. Please don't get worked up now. I don't want to worry about you in whatever anesthesia-inspired dream I'm about to have. I'd rather remember you smiling. So smile." He smirked. "It takes a lot more than falling three stories to take me away from you."

"…I can't imagine losing you, Miles." Phoenix stroked his hair again. It was sweat-soaked, bloody. His vision was blurring with tears again. He closed his eyes, and tears rolled down his cheeks. "I can't—I—"

He started crying again, bowing his head over Miles'. He sniffed, hard. His throat burned when he talked.

"I love you so much." He kissed Miles clumsily on the temple, stroked his hair away. "You're my entire world. You're my heartbeat; you're in the marrow of my bones and under my skin—and—if I lost you—I wouldn't be able to go on."

He kissed Miles again, again, softly, stroking his hair, taking care not to lean on his broken body. He desperately wanted to grab him, to hold him close, feel him breathing, feel his heart beating, feel him alive, _alive_, still with him. He whispered "I love you" brokenly over and over into his skin, still crying, kissing softly, madly, not caring that he was dripping tears and mucus. Miles tilted his head slightly, just enough to kiss Phoenix on the side of the neck.

"Phoenix." Miles' lips stayed against his skin, weak, clumsy, whispering. The splint on his nose was cold on Phoenix's cheek. "I love you. I've always loved you. Every time in the past I pushed you away, stupid, cowardly—I was realizing how much I loved you. I've loved you my whole life, from the moment I met you. Your warmth reached me over oceans and time and through cruelty and lies. I know—I'm not always good at showing it. But every second of every day I've loved you. You're my heartbeat too. And even if all the forces in heaven and hell tore me away from you, I would always be with you."

Phoenix pulled back to stare into Miles' eyes. They were clouded with dull pain and drugs, but sincere. He smiled sadly, wiping tears from his eyes.

"I hope that's not the drugs talking."

Miles laughed quietly. "They help loosen my tongue, but I assure you, these are the thoughts I have in my heart. Even when I don't say them out loud. Even when the only way I know how to communicate them is to kiss you senseless, and hope you understand. When I'm sober words seem cheaper than actions. I don't like to look like I doth protest too much."

"Be cheap. Protest too much. Please." Phoenix leaned down to kiss Miles' torn lips softly, barely nipping, flitting his tongue between them. Miles responded weakly, nipping back. "Or should I drug you this much more often?"

Miles laughed quietly into his mouth and continued kissing weakly, mouth barely moving. Phoenix ran his fingers through Miles' blood-matted hair and cradled his head, still kissing softly, tasting coppery blood on his lips.

None of this was new. Miles had told him this before. But every time he heard it, every time Miles articulated himself so fully, Phoenix's heart ached to the point of tears. It was every word he had imagined hearing in his dreams, had wished for in his moments of sappiest fantasy, had never dared to hope for because in real life human relationships did not work out this perfectly. People changed, people moved on, and love lost its luster. Nobody stayed in love after years and years of separation, after that much maturation and change away from each other, anywhere outside a Harlequin romance. The people you loved in youth, you always lost. There was always that one who got away. And it was okay; people moved on. And everybody thinks they're the exception to the rule, but they discover as they mature that they are not, that everyone else has felt the very same way.

These were the shields he had placed over his heart in the guise of maturity. But Miles pierced through them. For all that Miles was a neurotic, condescending, finicky, overly-serious, argumentative, insensitive jackass, he was the light of Phoenix's world. And now that he was old enough to understand how utterly they had beaten the odds, it was all the more precious to him.

Miles finally dosed off, breathing in and out of Phoenix's mouth rhythmically, and Phoenix brushed his hair out of his eyes, kissing his temple and closed eyelids sporadically. _He's alive. He's alive. He's alive._ The door opened, and Phoenix turned as Mask and another doctor walked in, the latter pushing a fresh gurney and closing the door behind him. Mask had one hand in her pocket, the other clutching a sheaf of papers loosely by her side, leaning against the counter nonchalantly. The other doctor wheeled the gurney parallel to the table on which Edgeworth was currently stretched out.

"All right," she said. "As you're Mr. Edgeworth's spouse you function as the next of kin, and he can't use his hands, so you'll have to sign some pre-op papers." She briefly held up the papers in her hand. "I'll discuss the details of the procedure with you. Let's go ahead and sign this one so we can start with the anesthesia."

Phoenix was reluctant to leave Miles, but he untangled his hand from his hair and walked to the counter, glancing over the consent form quickly. It was a bunch of medical jargon he did not understand, the usual clause about not suing for malpractice, pretty benign. Whatever. He just wanted the doctors to start helping Miles _now_. He signed and printed his name, dated it, and walked back to Edgeworth's side. He was awake.

"Come, now." Miles smiled weakly. "Don't make a scene. Just let the doctors operate so we can get this over with. And sign whatever they need you to sign, and don't cluck over me too much. Whatever they want to do to me is probably necessary."

Phoenix wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"You're an ass."

"I know."

Phoenix threaded his hand through Miles' hair and gave him one last, soft kiss. He touched his forehead to Miles' and whispered "I love you," to which Miles smiled and whispered "You too," in response. Phoenix gave him one last kiss, one last nuzzle, and stood, sighing, putting his hands in his pockets. The anesthesiologist had been looking away awkwardly with the air of a straight guy unused to watching two men kiss, but turned professionally as soon as Phoenix stood.

"All right, then, Mr. Edgeworth. I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut those clothes off."

"They're beyond repair anyway," said Miles. "By all means, doctor."

"Come on." Phoenix jumped a little; he had not heard Mask sneak up next to him. She walked toward the door. "Let's look at the rest of this boring legal shit. Mr. Edgeworth is going to be perfectly fine."

"Are you—" He pulled himself away from the sight of the anesthesiologist setting up an IV and piercing the crook of Edgeworth's arm with a needle and followed Mask out the door. "—are you the surgeon?"

"Nope. I just give the orders. Diagnostics. Dr. Stiles is taking care of that one. He's quite capable."

Mask opened the door to the waiting room. The entire party but Detective Gumshoe was still there, Maggey dozing stretched out on two chairs, swollen belly rising and falling, glasses falling down her nose, Pearl and Trucy playing with a now-awake Toby, pushing painted wooden beads along coiled, color wire tracks embedded on either end in plywood, and Maya was staring off, lost in thought. She looked up as soon as the emergency room doors opened and trotted over, hovering.

"How is he?"

"He's fine. He's going into surgery." Maya's eyes widened at that, but Phoenix patted her shoulder reassuringly. "He's going to be fine. Dr. Mask and I are going to discuss the procedure for a bit. I'll tell you guys what's going on after."

Maya nodded and stared at Phoenix for a moment. He knew he looked horrible, eyes red, probably had blood on his face or hands. She gave him a fierce hug and went to play with Toby and the girls. Toby had grown bored with the beads already, and Trucy was trying to get him to pick a card out of her hand, for all that Pearl was protesting that Toby was too young to understand card tricks.

Mask and Phoenix settled side-by-side on a couch in front of a low coffee table, started going through the papers she had with her. She commented that a lot of the doctors hated working on attorneys of any persuasion, given the rampant nature of malpractice suits in the past half-century, to which Phoenix just shrugged awkwardly and messed with his cap. Being called an 'ambulance chaser' was, in the past, a good way to turn him livid and indignant with disgust—for all that it was a generic insult to throw at _any_ attorney—but he read nothing further into her offhand comment.

The photocopies of Miles' x-rays were sickening. Mask pointed over the multiple break points with a pen, indicated the leg x-ray showing the shattered bone jutting through his leg. He had cracked several ribs, and was damned lucky he did not suffer a punctured lung. His right elbow was dislocated; the ligament was torn. Several bones in his palms and the balls of his feet were cracked. His wrists and ankles were shattered and would require re-setting and a graft with a synthetic bone derivative; in the past, this would have required extensive screwing. His nose was splinted in the x-ray—the gauze was stark-white, the metal splint glowing—but the articulation of the shattered bone was clear in the picture. The wooden spar was jammed almost to the bone; this would be removed in surgery, along with the industrial nail driven through his left palm. Again, Mask pointed out that Miles was insanely lucky; he was less than a millimeter from having pierced his radial nerve and losing function in his hand. Other lacerations would be stitched and cleaned, of course. They would check carefully for any internal bleeding or tearing they may have missed. The surgery should take hours, just given how exhaustive the list was of things to fix, but was standard procedure otherwise, minimal risk to the patient's long-term health. After Phoenix had signed the relevant papers Mask recommended that he go get himself a nightcap, or at least go home and get some sleep; they would call him as soon as Miles was awake. He shook his head, insisting that he would wait here. Mask shrugged, saying that if he changed his mind, they would still contact him, and disappeared back through the emergency room doors. He stared after her, at the closed doors, for an indeterminate amount of time, half-lucid, racing through memories.

"Daddy!"

Phoenix looked up. Toby was running toward the entrance with his arms outstretched, little sneakers squeaking at every step, and tumbled into Gumshoe, who swept him up in one arm and kissed him on the top of the head. Maggey had jerked out of her sleep at the sound of her son's voice and straightened, pushing her glasses back up her nose. Phoenix stood and walked over as well. Gumshoe had collapsed gratefully in the chair next to Maggey, Toby still on his lap; as soon as he sat down, Toby detached himself and ran back to the children's area. Gumshoe let him go; though Pearl, Trucy, and Maya were all now crowding around him, the toys were in plain sight of the adults, and they could keep an eye on the little guy easily.

"I've got it, pal." Gumshoe held up a manila folder triumphantly. His voice was rather loud, which was par for the course when he was over-excited. "Hard proof that somebody messed with that scaffold and tried to kill Mr. Edgeworth."


	6. Memory 05: Won't Get Fooled Again

**Memory 05: Won't Get Fooled Again**

"I was able to get back down to the sub-basement on the same pulley-system the paramedics used to get to Mr. Edgeworth. It's been left up so we can continue with the investigation. Of course, there's a lot of sawdust, that sort of thing down there, from the work crew, and without advanced forensic analysis it would be impossible to tell if any of the sawdust in the sub-basement came from sawing away at the scaffold. However, I don't think that was the way it was done."

Gumshoe paused, as if waiting for somebody to ask him why he thought that. He received flat, impatient stares in return. He sighed and continued.

"The bases of the wood making up that staircase were rotted through with OrgoChew. I confirmed it was there with this litmus-like paper the construction crew gave me. It's an industrial reagent used to eat away organic matter, like wood, without harming nonorganic materials." He gave the words an odd enunciation that indicated he had just read them off something. "But the strange thing is that it was applied to the base of the scaffold, not from the top. The way it was applied to the base of the staircase, it was seeping up by uh—cardiac action, is that what it's called?"

"—capillary—" said Phoenix.

"—rotting it from the base up. And like I told you, pal, nobody went down there after I tested it. I was there the whole time. Didn't take a bathroom break or nothing."

"Is that scaffold the only way in and out of the sub-basement?" asked Maya. "You're certain of that?"

"Yeah, it is." Gumshoe scratched the back of his head, furrowing his brows and looking up in thought. "Unless somebody dug in underground, but we'da heard that. We checked thoroughly for the murder investigation."

"A Gramarye could have done that easily." Trucy was fidgeting with her locket. "But none of us would have any reason to kill Papa Miles, ever."

"Is that hard to do?" asked Maggey.

Trucy's shoulders stiffened with indignation, though she kept her face calm. "For a Gramarye, it's child's play. Embarrassingly easy."

"No, I mean for a normal person. Or, uh, not that I mean that you're not normal, but, uh…" She scratched the back of her head in an odd mimic of her husband's nervous tick. "…like, for those of us who don't do magic."

"Yes." Trucy's hand clasped around the metal. The chain bit into her neck with the strain. "It's not something a two-bit magician would have been able to do."

Gumshoe's eyebrows furrowed deeper. "Which narrows the field of suspects a lot, don't it."

"I think you guys are getting somewhat sidetracked." Phoenix had shoved his hands in his pockets and was staring at the ground. It was painful to watch Trucy struggle to mask her emotions, but she could sense when somebody was staring at her with uncanny accuracy—Phoenix had long ago figured out it was not just paranoia—and it would have made her even more tense. "I can't think of a single magician who would have had the motive to kill Miles."

Everybody stared at him. "I… I can't believe _you're_ telling us not to get sidetracked, pal," Gumshoe said finally.

_Neither can I. But it's Gavin; I know it_. "How long does it take to start making something unstable with that stuff?"

"You mean OrgoChew?"

"Whatever, that. Yeah."

"Not long. It's volatile and travels rapidly up dried wood. Oh, well…" Gumshoe opened the manila folder and pulled out a photograph of the wreckage. He had circled in red four off-white hemispheres attached to wooden spars like fat grubs. "…this was the delivery mechanism. These capsules hold the OrgoChew in a closed space so it doesn't evaporate, but is drawn up into the wood where it can work."

"Wait," said Pearl. She was chewing on her thumbnail pensively. "Detective Gumshoe said only an hour elapsed between the time he tested the scaffold and the time Mr. Edgeworth stepped on it. Somewhere in that time period, then, somebody went down there and set up those capsules. But that's impossible."

"I swear, pal, nobody went down there. I checked. I was there the whole time."

"But since you're the only one who saw any of this, and you were the last one to go down into the sub-basement, you're gonna be the prime suspect in this case."

Maya was right. Phoenix sighed; he had realized this a long time ago. Maggey clenched the chair arm harder and set her jaw, eyes smoldering. Gumshoe's face went pale.

"M-Maya! I swear I didn't try to hurt Mr. Edgeworth! I'd never—never…"

"I know! I know!" Maya waved her hands in a vague attempt at placation. "_We_ all know that, but—it's…"

"Wait." Phoenix held up his hand. Everybody turned to face him. His eyebrows were furrowed in thought; he was stroking the stubble on his chin with his thumb and the crook of his forefinger. "Can those capsules be set to go off remotely?"

"Well… yes." Gumshoe scratched his head. "With radio control. So the construction guys can set them up and climb up something while it's still sturdy, and then set it to rot while they're up safe."

Phoenix gave him a flat look. _Christ, that didn't strike you as the least bit worth mentioning? That changes everything._

"That's it, then. The killer could have come a lot earlier, waited for Gumshoe to test the scaffolding and be the last one to go down there—" Phoenix slammed his hand into the table, and Maggey squeaked and jumped in shock. He furrowed his brows, focusing. "—which would have been necessary to insure that it was Edgeworth who stepped on there. Gumshoe said he'd never let Edgeworth stand on anything dangerous, and I believe him. His confidence had to be won." He thought for a moment, still staring hard at Gumshoe. "Those capsules, you said they were standard issue to the demolition crew?"

"We talked to some of the men still on duty there. They said that they had set up the capsules ahead of time so they could take out the stairway—before the murder—but then the body was discovered at the bottom of the shaft by the man who was setting up the capsules. The demolition was halted, but the capsules stayed in place. They didn't realize the remote control was missing until after the stairway collapsed."

Phoenix's eyes went wide. He grasped the chair arm with his free hand, still leaning on the table.

_Oh, for God's sake, Gumshoe; how the hell could you not mention this?_

"What's the range on the remote?"

"Probably not more than a few hundred yards. Which means whoever set it off had to be at the scene between the time I called Mr. Edgeworth and the time he showed up. I went down to the crime scene for the last time right after we hung up. The capsules had to be set off sometime during that window of time."

"Who was on site at that time?"

"Well… me. A few of the cops were around. I didn't see anybody else."

"How far from the scaffold did you go during that time period? At any point, for any amount of time?"

"Not far, pal. I was busy taking molds of shoe prints."

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck—_ "So your range of vision was limited—far more limited than the range covered by the remote."

Gumshoe's shoulders dropped, and he looked up at Phoenix guiltily. For a man nearing his forties, it was amazing how much he could look like a kicked puppy.

"I guess so, pal."

"Do you have a diagram of the crime scene?"

"Well—yeah." Gumshoe pulled a map out of the folder and set it on the table. "Right here."

Phoenix looked it over. The warehouse was in the center, the shaft to the sub-basement clearly marked in one corner. The depth of the hole and all the dimensions were given, thankfully, and were marked 'to scale'. Phoenix searched his pockets for a pen, and when he came up dry, Gumshoe handed him his. It was almost dry and one of those cheap-ass ones you had to press down hard to get a line, and the cap was chewed up.

"What was the maximum range on that radio transceiver again?"

"I—I don't remember exactly, pal."

"Wait." Maya fished in the sleeve of her habit and pulled out her phone. "I can get internet on this. If I search the model of the transceiver, maybe the website will tell us."

"That would be perfect if I remembered."

"They're all roughly the same." Phoenix leaned over the map eagerly. "See what you can find."

"Right."

After a few minutes' searching and poking with a stylus, Maya looked up. "The maximum range I could find for the standard remotes was 600 feet."

Phoenix ripped a small strip of paper off the edge of the map, marked a distance equivalent to 100 feet according to the map's scale, and measured out a circle radius 600 feet from the hole. Gumshoe shook his head.

"That radius is outside the police perimeter, pal. He could'a been out of anybody's sight. Didn't have to have access."

"Wait. Yes he did." Maya smashed her hands into the table excitedly. "He had to get the remote in the first place, and the workers said it disappeared after the police set up the perimeter."

"You're both wrong!"

Phoenix, Maya, and Gumshoe looked up at Trucy. She snatched the pen out of Phoenix's hand and drew a dashed diagonal line going from the sub-basement to the edge of the radio range Phoenix had drawn. She wrote 'c' next to the line.

As soon as she did that, Phoenix whacked himself mentally.

"You're not thinking third-dimensionally!" She pointed to the line triumphantly. "Triangulation! We do this stuff all the time for magic shows. Since the capsules were in the ground, the actual range is going to be shorter from the top of the scaffold. And since we know the depth and the max range along the hypotenuse has to be 600 feet…"

"Yeah, I get it. Maya, does that fancy phone have a calculator?"

"Yup."

"Take this down."

Phoenix scratched out the math, shooting numbers back and forth with Maya, and drew the new radius and circumference. Gumshoe's eyes grew wider.

"That's within the police perimeter, pal!"

"It's also entirely within the building." Phoenix looked up. His eyes were hard. "If the range of this transceiver is equal to or less than the range Maya found online, the killer was inside the building between the time Gumshoe last stood on the scaffold and the time it collapsed. How much of a time window is that?"

"Uh…" Gumshoe looked up for a moment in thought. "Mr. Edgeworth said he'd be an hour, but he was early, so… less than that."

"Hold it!"

Phoenix smashed his hands into the table. This time, both Gumshoe and Maggey jumped back, Maya hissed that this wasn't a goddamn courtroom, and Pearl and Trucy started cracking up behind their hands. Phoenix's eyes did not flicker from Gumshoe. He knew he looked like he was glaring—he had seen court video played back of his trials, and he was shocked by how aggressive and predatory he could appear when he was on the chase—but he did not care.

"What's the amount of time it would take for the OrgoChew to eat through the wood from the time the capsules started releasing?"

"Uh." Gumshoe scratched the back of his head. "No idea. Pal, you're really making me feel like I'm on trial right now."

"Is it variable?"

"I don't know." Gumshoe reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the capsules. Phoenix half-expected his eyes to fall out of his head. "Maybe it'll tell us."

Phoenix snatched it out of Gumshoe's hand. "Give me that."

"Oh." Maya looked over Phoenix's shoulder and glanced back down at her phone. "That's one of the model numbers listed on the website I found. Our calculations are good."

"Good."

Phoenix looked the device over carefully, turning it over in his hands. The top was smooth and nondescript, void of any text or detail; the underside was flat and engraved with model and serial number. A switch with three settings was set next to the holes Phoenix assumed were for releasing the OrgoChew. It was currently set to 1L/hour.

"Maya. Look up the chemical compound OrgoChew; see how much wood it can eat per liter."

"Uh." She punched in some text, waited. "This is getting into some complicated stuff."

"Just do it."

Phoenix felt lame having to think through the problem so carefully when in high school and university this sort of thing would have been easy. He gave his best mental estimate of the width and type of the spar in Edgeworth's arm, examined the wood in the picture relative to the size of the capsule on the table, erred on the large side, crunched numbers.

"Okay." Phoenix slammed his pen down triumphantly. "Even giving liberal room for error on the large side for the amount of wood and the light size for Miles' weight, it would take anywhere from thirty to forty-five minutes for the wood to be decayed enough to fall _immediately_ under Miles' weight, but not to fall on its own under its own weight before he could stand on it and be trapped. The timing had to be precise." His eyes flashed. "Which means that the killer had to have precise knowledge of the time Miles would arrive so he would hit that window. And, furthermore, it means that the time window is short enough that the killer would have to have been on site after Gumshoe was the last one to stand on the scaffold. It all fits."

"The only person he told that to was me, pal."

Silence. Gumshoe's eyes widened.

"Pal, I swear to God I didn't—"

"I know it wasn't you."

"Isn't it really easy to tap cell phone calls?" asked Trucy. "They do that on TV all the time."

"It's also easy to hear somebody speaking loudly in an echoing warehouse."

Gumshoe quailed under Maya's accusatory stare. "I… I had no idea it was sensitive information."

"It doesn't matter." Phoenix was resting his chin in his hand again. He stared at the diagram. "What does matter is that we have established that it was possible for somebody other than Gumshoe to have known Miles' estimated time of arrival. _And_, this person had to know enough about the progress of the investigation to know that everybody but Miles had been down to the place where they found the body and had no further reason to go down there. This again requires firsthand knowledge of what was going on at the crime scene within that hour window."

"Yeah, but something keeps bothering me, pal…" Gumshoe scratched the back of his head. "Mr. Edgeworth showed up earlier than he said he would."

"By how much?"

"I don't know. Twenty minutes, something like that."

"Exactly." Phoenix smashed his hands into the table again, leaning on them, determined. The other waiting room patrons stared at him. "That's why Miles survived. He showed up _earlier than the killer expected him to_. The scaffold had a _halting fall_ because the beams were only _weakened_, not totally _decayed_. I bet anything when it started shaking, he froze up like he always does. He's terrified of earthquakes or anything resembling earthquakes. And if he fell on all fours like he usually does—"

"—he would have had a controlled fall!" Maya smashed her fist into her palm, eyes gleaming. "And if the scaffold didn't go into freefall, he would have had breaks along the way. It would have slowed him down. And it would have given him time to try to stop himself."

"Yes." Phoenix forced himself to stare _through_ the memory of his observations, view them objectively; it was easier knowing Miles' body was currently being knit back together and healed. "His palms were ripped to shreds. I bet he was able to slow his fall a little by trying to grab onto anything that was still standing. If things had gone as planned, if he had shown up a little later, he wouldn't have had time for any of this to happen. He would have landed on his back or his neck, more than likely. He'd be—"

_Paralyzed. Vegetable. Dead._

"_You're leaving now? Sure you don't want another pint?"_

"We've got to report this!"

Phoenix snapped out of his daze; Gumshoe had jumped up and was gathering up the papers on the desk.

"No!"

Phoenix smashed his hands into the papers. Gumshoe yelped in surprise and jumped back.

"We can't take this to the police. You're the prime suspect right now; you'd get arrested and tried for attempted murder. And you'd be found guilty."

"Even if I was the one who reported it?"

"Absolutely. It's classic to report one's own murder to try to look innocent. I'd defend you in court, I swear I would—but I can't. And Edgeworth can't prosecute, not in his condition. You'd be at the mercy of God-knows-which pair of lawyers. You'd be found guilty of attempted murder. Any two-bit lawyer would see it that way. Open-shut case for the prosecution. Nobody would bother to try to turn it around. You'd be found guilty." He looked at Maggey, who was clutching the arms of her chair and turning pale, and at Toby asleep next to her. "And you've got way too much to lose—and a real killer would walk free. We'd gain nothing from reporting this. Nothing. Not now."

"But I don't have a motive to kill Mr. Edgeworth, pal; how do you write that off?"

Phoenix did not realize that he was smirking triumphantly until Maya gave him an odd look. "He's lowered your salary multiple times in the past. It's easy to weave a story to the court that he treated you badly for years and you'd want to take revenge, make it look like an accident. Make it look like you were jealous. After all, here you are doing all of the hard work, and he takes all the glory in court."

"That ain't…"

"See? Just like that." Phoenix pounded the table again. Maya looked toward the registration desk as though she feared they were about to get kicked out. "Even if we know it's not true, what does the court know? Everybody knows he used to be an absolute jackass. It stands to reason he'd make enemies. And the killer knew all of this. He knew he could set you up. It would look like you'd have more motive than anybody else at the construction site."

"What if it was the same guy that killed the guy down in the hole?" asked Pearl. "And wanted Prosecutor Edgeworth out of the picture? That sounds like a pretty good motive."

_Because it wasn't. It was fucking Kristoph Gavin, but she has a point. Even if Gumshoe were acquitted, the demolition crew would be suspects well before Gavin._

"…the construction crew was all moved off the scene by that time, right?"

"Yeah, pal." Gumshoe scratched his head. "I'd say they were all moved off before sundown."

"Maybe one of them snuck back in," said Maya. "They'd know the site really well, wouldn't they? Maybe they had some kind of super-secret entrance you guys didn't know about."

"And wouldn't the demolition crew know about the OrgoChew stuff? They'd know how much time they needed to make it work if they use it all the time."

Again, Trucy was right. Phoenix sighed.

"I don't see why they wouldn't take out the cops or the detectives. Miles didn't arrive at the scene until much later. The fact that Miles was the specific target is critical to the case. Somebody had to know what he looks like and what his occupation is. Public prosecutors aren't exactly famous outside their own circles."

"But if the guy was a hardened criminal, like in the mob or something, Mr. Edgeworth might be, like, his arch enemy!" Maya clenched her fists excitedly. "He'd be like Harvey Dent, except instead of burning his face off they dried to drop him down a mine shaft!"

"You keep saying 'he' like you're so sure it's a man," said Maggey. At some point, Toby had crawled back up on the chair beside her and was sleeping on her arm. She was stroking his hair. "How do you know that the killer wasn't a female gangster or something? Or maybe he broke some woman's heart in the past and she wanted revenge."

Phoenix, Maya, and Trucy all gave Maggey a flat look.

_Yeah, if it wasn't painfully obvious that he's gayer than a treefull of monkeys on nitrous oxide, that would have a chance of sliding. _

"He could be bi," said Pearl cautiously.

"He's not," said Maya and Trucy in unison.

"It doesn't matter." Phoenix removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. His fingers were shaking. _It doesn't matter because it was Kristoph Gavin; I'd bet anything on that._ "None of this matters. Detective Gumshoe would still be the prime suspect, and he'd probably be found guilty anyway. No, we have to play it off as an accident for now. Miles is going to be all right."

He lowered his head, staring hard at the desk, seeing through it.

"Don't worry. I'm not letting this go. I can assure you this incident will not be forgotten. Ever."

_Miles, broken, bloodied, in agony._

_Paralyzed, vegetable, dead._

He clenched his hat so tightly his hands shook.

_For every second of pain he suffered, Gavin, you'll pay for this. No matter how long it takes me to get to you._

"Nick…" Maya said softly.

Phoenix excused himself under his breath and made a beeline for the stairwell. He could feel the perplexed stares against his back. He did not hear Maya following him.

* * *

"Phoenix. Stand up."

The gravel-mulch on the roof was cold beneath his palms. He froze. The night breeze was cool, damp and salty out of the west; it was soothing against his overheated skin. He had collapsed against the wall, shaking, yanking his hair and screwing his eyes shut. His throat burned.

He stood regardless, clenching his fists, trying to regain his composure. The woman before him stared with crossed arms. She was in Maya's robes, but was taller, far more voluptuous, commanding, sharp, and _powerful_. That was the word that had struck Phoenix hardest when he had first met her, all those years ago—powerful. Capable if anybody was. She had all the presence and charisma of the generals of yore who could galvanize their troops to do the impossible, in the face of impossible odds, or inspire them to gladly die trying.

"Mia…" he finally said softly.

"Phoenix." She gave him a stern look. "Look at yourself. Miles Edgeworth is alive and well. You should be rejoicing and galvanized to action by your close call. You have a job to do. A lawyer is a person who doesn't cry until it's all over."

"I'm not a lawyer anymore. You know this. I've told you—"

"Bullshit."

Phoenix kept staring at the ground, clenching his fists. Mia sighed and stepped closer to him.

"I don't care what board takes away your badge." Her voice was softer. "You still have the desire to defend the innocent and discover the truth. It burns, it consumes you, and trying to extinguish it would only be cowardice. I can see it even now beneath that idiotic mask of faux-jadedness and cynicism." She tilted his chin up with her fingers, and he met her eyes. She stared _though_ him. "That emotional defender of the downtrodden and innocent, the prince of the turnabouts, is still in there somewhere."

Phoenix lowered his eyes, and Mia withdrew her hand and stepped back. Coming from anybody else, that would have just sounded idiotic, and Phoenix would have said so. Somehow, _anything_ coming from Mia sounded profound. She was the epitome of the concept that it's not what you say, but how you say it. She could probably make his atrocious attempts at poetry from junior high sound like _Paradise Lost_.

"You can bring about the revolution of the court system. I think you were fated for this the moment you first decided to be a lawyer."

Phoenix exhaled silently through his nose and glanced to the side, but Mia's scowl stopped him from rolling his eyes.

_And my midi-chlorian counts are off the charts too?_

"Mia, come on. You can't be serious about all of this Chosen One bullshit."

Phoenix glanced at the ground. Mia's eyes were _smoldering_. Not even Miles could make him shut up so fast just by glaring, and when he was pissed off, Miles Edgeworth could scowl with enough force to sear through lead.

"The system has since become especially hostile to the intuitive, to the unconventional thinkers," she continued. Her expression _dared_ Phoenix to interrupt. "It has become a relic of the outdated Platonic ideal exalting the concrete and linear-logical above all else. It has become a tunnel-visioned entity. And you—you've broken through that ideal not by raging against it mindlessly, but by flowing around it. You've mastered it, play it like a puppet. And in that, you have revealed its weaknesses. You've turned it over in your hands and examined the flaws and faults nobody has bothered to acknowledge. You've had the courage to see the hypocrisy plainly in front of you, when everybody else shuts their eyes, and eventually, the brain just erases those 'flaws' from their view. The flaws become invisible, can't be seen, even if you stare with your eyes wide open. And it's easier that way, just pretending everything's all right, instead of doing something about it."

Phoenix lowered his eyes again. He swallowed to wet his tongue, suddenly realizing how dry it was, and looked up, setting his shoulders.

"In the first place, it's not like I lost my badge because I was involved in some sort of courageous rebellion or something like that. I was just doing my job. And in the second place, it doesn't take much courage just to _see_ something. It takes courage to do something about it."

"Yes, you're right." She paused. "You were doing your job as you always have, to the best of your ability, for the best of your clients. Ultimately, you act in favor of whomever is innocent, regardless of rewards inherent in acting otherwise. But if you think about it, that in of itself is pretty special. A lot of people pay lip service to that ideal, or they want to act on it, but they just aren't strong enough. You are."

Phoenix sighed and stared off over the rooftops for a while. He heard Mia step closer to him, could somehow smell the essence that was hers in life—orchid perfume and botanical shampoo, the musk of clean, warm skin. The scent stirred deep, primordial memories of a young lawyer coming to his aid, so calm and confident and protective, of watching her from behind the defendant's stand and feeling something well deep in his heart as she tore apart the woman he thought he loved, peeled away layers of lies and malice. And something about her being was so noble, so infused with the goodness he thought he had seen and the strength he had never seen in Dahlia—strength even Iris had never had for all her goodness—that he knew even as his heart was breaking that someday he was going to be okay. At the time he had rationalized it as the realization that there were better women (or men; his art school experimentation phase had made it clear that he enjoyed the company of men as well, but at the time he was going through an obsessed-with-the-feminine phase) out there, people worthy of his love and respect, but in retrospect it was a far more complex subconscious realization than just that. What mattered at the time was that it shielded him from the rot of cynicism in regard to all of humanity. Or from being crushed by the weight of betrayal and heartbreak and hanging himself as soon as he got back to the dorms, one or the other.

He loved Mia. Even at the time he was content with his love being unrequited, and never questioned its strength or purity for that. It was the first time he had truly realized what people meant when they said they could be okay with loving somebody who did not love them back, just to be near them and love them. He was content with loving her from a distance and having her as a mentor, knowing full well that she was out of reach. At the time he wondered if she was a lesbian, given how cool she was toward men when she could have her pick and choose, but it was not until after her death that he learned about her history with Diego Armando. In retrospect it was obvious that the detachment she displayed was a defense mechanism for an already-broken heart, but she never showed her pain. Through all of that, she had remained the idealistic defender of the innocent Phoenix had come to love—the manifestation of what Miles was before Von Karma had brainwashed him—and it was not until after her death he could appreciate how truly amazing she was to maintain her belief in truth and justice and the good of humanity despite the cruelty she had experienced firsthand. Anybody else Phoenix had known—including Miles, loathe though he was to admit it—would have—_did_—become jaded and cynical. And he had by that time realized that it was not only cruel, disaffected, weak people who became jaded and cynical. The strongest, kindest, most well-adjusted people he knew had as a defense cultivated a detached cynicism regarding what should and should not be, what is ideal and what is the reality of a situation.

To a large degree, they were right, and to a large degree, Phoenix shared their attitude. There was nothing wrong with it. Idealism taken too far could be harmful, especially when it was upheld to glorify itself at the expense of others. Choosing one's battles saved oneself from being incapacitated over an irrelevant issue, rendered unable to help where one truly could. But Mia was never afraid to fight when it was called for. She had been the flesh-and-blood inspiration to keep hold of the ideal he experienced in elementary school, proof that it was not just a fairy tale if one chose to uphold it when the time was right. She had made him realize that becoming a lawyer to defend the innocent was not an impossible, idiotic dream in the Real World after all.

He had never known how hard it would be, how many people would think he was a simple-minded, naïve idiot to believe in these things as an adult, but she made him realize it could be done.

Trust. That was what Mia exuded, despite being given all reasons to shield herself with low expectations of humanity. She retained her trust in people. She always gave them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

_Trust in people, huh? _

Phoenix was silent for a long time. He did not realize how knotted his throat had become until he tried to speak. His voice was gravely.

"People should not fear their government; the government should fear its people."

Mia arched her eyebrow. "That's from a movie, isn't it?"

Phoenix looked up.

"Miles was right. The Sherlock Holmes legacy of detective work is dead. Even juries have been eliminated from the system. We're moving toward all those old science fiction movies where all decisions are made by computers and logarithms and hard-logic machines. There are a lot of advantages to that, I admit. Bias is cruel and witnesses are unreliable. But it feels… incomplete, somehow." He paused. "The most brilliant discoveries are supplemented by intuition. Not even computers can do that yet; not even quantum machines can be as intuitive as humans yet. It's a fusion. And you've got to have proof to link up both ends, somehow, or people would just jump to conclusions all over the place. But we're not allowed to do even that anymore. It's almost like they expect all the evidence to be laid perfectly out like this is some sort of crime drama or logic game or something. Like evidence can't disappear or be destroyed. And it wouldn't be so damn unfair if there wasn't also the demand that _somebody_ pay for every crime within three fucking days. The system would rather sacrifice a scapegoat than let a case go cold. It's a return to the era of Biblical sacrifice. There's the illusion that if somebody pays for a crime, that erases it. It's almost like the defendant is assumed guilty until proven innocent beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt. It didn't used to be that way. And people say it still is. Bullshit." He laughed humorlessly. "The legal system lost sight of itself ages ago. Somehow, since the turn of the century, it's gotten even worse."

Mia was silent. Phoenix stared back down at the roof. Neither one spoke for a long time. Phoenix could feel that Mia was waiting for him to speak; he was half-glad she could read his thoughts. He hoped she could glean some coherence from their form he could not articulate into words.

"…I can't take this anymore." He clenched his fists inside his hoodie pocket though he knew damn well Mia could see that, but at least he would maintain some pretense of stoicism. His wedding band bit into his skin. "Pretending to be friends with Gavin, just to be close to him, to make him drop his defenses… it's so exhausting. So underhanded. So manipulative and dishonest. And after this, after what he's done to Miles—all I want to do is rip him apart with my bare hands. Make him suffer for every second Miles suffered."

"It _is_ underhanded and manipulative. So is Gavin. So is the system you know you have to change." Mia sighed. "Sometimes you have to get yourself dirty to help good people, so they don't have to. And ultimately, that's okay. If anybody can seep himself in the criminal underworld and return with a pure heart, it's you. The weapons we use, espionage and entrapment, are potent; their effects, good or bad, are decided by who wields them. And I know your intentions are good, your heart is pure. You always weigh your options with a mind to what you think is right, and your standards of right and wrong exalt the sanctity of the individual and the protection of the innocent. 'Do no harm' and 'turn the other cheek' are simplistic absolutions to follow. Always sticking to the rules for their own sake is simplistic cowardice. There are people who will keep hurting and hurting and hurting until they are stopped by force. You have to have the backbone to judge when to strike back, and the fortitude and intelligence to stay your hand until those who have done no harm will not be hurt. I don't have the heart of an ascetic. I can't passively let evil people get away from justice. And I don't think you do, either."

"But I can't do it anymore; I can't just smile and be his friend and pretend I don't know how much he's—"

"So?" Mia glared, hard. "Go ahead, blow up at him, alienate him and lose everything you've worked for all these years. Selfishly indulge in your catharsis. Make yourself feel better. Make all the pain Edgeworth is feeling now—because he believes in you, Phoenix, and wants to help you—be in vain. But it's not going to help you put Gavin away, or change things for the greater good. You've got to keep strong and stay your hand until the time is right." Her eyes softened. "Take all that anger, take all that fear and pain he's made you feel—made your loved ones feel—and let it harden your resolve. Let it make you determined to see this through. And rest assured that victory will be yours in the end."

Phoenix stared at Mia for a long time. He finally set his jaw and nodded.

Mia smiled warmly. "I know you'll make me proud, Phoenix. You always have in the past."

His throat was tight again.

"I hope so. Chief."

He did not know if he was breaching some unspoken taboo insofar as channeling was concerned. He stepped forward and clutched Mia in a tight embrace, one hand clutching her shoulder, the other across her narrow back. Her breasts pressed against his chest, flattening. She hesitated a moment, then wove her arms under his and clutched him back, firmly. He always forgot that she was this much shorter than him; her presence and the way she carried herself made her seem larger in his minds' eye. He was also used to standing next to her while she was in thick heels; Maya's sandals were far flatter. The articulation presented by the channeling was stunning; Mia felt as fully alive as she ever had, and he wondered, not for the first time, how far beneath the skin that transformation carried itself, how much spirit and physical body had to remain intertwined in some odd way, or if the physical representation he saw was merely a mode of communication for the sake of the living. He wondered if the heartbeat he felt in her chest was hers or Maya's. He buried his nose in her hair and sniffed, clutching tighter, looking for strength. He felt on the verge of a breakdown again. He sniffed, hard, and rested his cheek on the side of her head.

"I miss you."

Mia was silent for a moment, and then kissed Phoenix on the cheek. She leaned back so she could see his face. His skin tingled where her lips had touched.

"We're always watching over you, in an abstract way. Even if we sometimes don't get the details of what is going on, the dead see the big picture."

"Is Prosecutor Godot up there with you?"

He blurted out the question before he could fully think about it. It was something he had wondered multiple times after Armando finally died of extensive organ failure from the poisoning, but had never had the chance to ask. Mia looked slightly taken aback, but she quickly smiled. It was one of those smiles that truly reached her eyes.

"Yes, he is."

Phoenix felt an incredible warmth spread up from the pit of his stomach. Her smile was infectious; it ghosted across his own face, releasing his muscles with relief. He did not know if relationships magically got better in the afterlife. Mia had said that after death, the ego lives on, and it was precisely the ego that was the cause of so much strife between people. As long as people were separate entities, there would be misunderstanding and conflict—he thought. Or maybe the afterlife operated by different rules entirely. Maybe you could be a fusion of yourself and fully at one with another person at the same time. It would be heavenly.

He almost found himself eagerly awaiting death with Miles so their souls could entwine into that ecstatic cocktail for eternity, drifting into stardust, never again fighting and experiencing the agony that was part of love, and he could be with all his loved ones again, but he shoved that thought out of his mind. While he was alive, he fully intended to live. But he did not want to be afraid of death.

"I'm glad," he said quietly. "I'm so glad for both of you."

He held Mia like that for a long time, taking in her warmth, resting his cheek against her hair again. The ocean breeze stirred past them, simultaneously warming and cooling, damp.

He screamed when a radiator vent was torn from the hospital roof like tinfoil and hurled full-speed at his head. He ducked, dragging Mia down with him, and it crashed into the gravel behind him. He looked around frantically, but nobody was there. Mia was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe.

"What the—what—the fuck—"

"I think Diego is getting impatient with you." Mia gasped for air and stood, brushing the gravel off Maya's robes. Phoenix gaped at her, then gaped in the direction of the shorn circle of metal in the roof.

"He's—wha—" Phoenix stood and yelled over Mia's head. "You bastard!"

The vent smacked him in the back of the head. Phoenix yelled and batted it away, dully noting that it was lighter than he expected, and Mia laughed harder. He looked around indignantly and rubbed the back of his head. The vent hovered threateningly at face-height, drifting around him lazily.

"Jesus." His eyes followed the vent; he circled around with it. "What was all that about the dead not noticing small details?"

"I think this is pretty important to him."

"Jealous prick." Phoenix ducked as the vent swayed toward his face again. "At least it's not scalding hot coffee this time."

"Don't give him ideas." Mia's laughter was abating, but she was still smiling warmly. "Besides, if he really wanted to hurt you, he could have torn your face off by now."

"And I thought the dead were powerless without a body?"

"Not entirely. But perhaps you've perhaps heard the term 'soul mate'? It's not just a romantic turn of phrase. As I have taken a physical form, he can take aspects of the power I currently have, including observational powers." She paused. "Besides, ghosts and poltergeists who remain here on earth with a grudge or unfinished business have formidable kinetic powers. Regular spirits can just move your keys to the last place you'd look to find them."

"That's good to know."

The vent dropped heavily into the gravel. Phoenix sighed and kicked it with the flat of his sandal. Most guys assumed that if you were involved in a relationship with another man, you were by default not a threat to their own girlfriends. Just his luck Armando wasn't so naïve.

"I hope the hospital didn't need that."

Mia laughed quietly behind her hand. Phoenix straightened and looked up at her.

"I believe in you, Phoenix. And I believe you know what you have to do. I believe you've known it for a long time."

* * *

After his conversation with Mia his mind was running nonstop, a myriad of ideas running into a stream-of-consciousness he did not know how to begin articulating fully. He wished he had his laptop to type ideas as they came to him, but he did not want to leave the hospital, so he paced the waiting room and tried to fix the ideas in his head as they flowed. Trucy followed on his heels for a little while, curious and worried, though she sensed that he did not want to talk, and Maya and Pearl watched him uneasily. Maggey and Gumshoe had left with Toby after Phoenix had promised to call as soon as Miles was awake. He told the girls to go home and get some sleep, take care of Pess, and after promising that he would also call them as soon as Miles was awake, they also consented and went back to the apartment.

It was almost dawn when Dr. Mask touched Phoenix's shoulder and startled him out of his reverie. He pulled his earbuds out of his ears and turned off his mp3 player.

_I'll tip my hat to the new constitution  
Take a bow for the new revolution  
Smile and grin at the change all around_

"Dr. Stiles is done. Mr. Edgeworth is going to be fine. He's in the recovery room waking up right now."

_Pick up my guitar and play  
Just like yesterday  
Then I'll get on my knees and pray_

"When can I see him?"

_We don't get fooled again_

"We'll move him to his room shortly." Mask beckoned for Phoenix to follow her with curled fingers and started walking toward another set of double-doors. Phoenix followed on her heels, switching off his mp3 player and winding the chord around his hand before shoving it into his pocket. For such a small woman, she walked fast. "You can wait for him there."

"All right."

"The good news is that he is expected to make a full recovery, though after the anesthesia fully wears off he will be quite sore for a while. We are going to put him on painkillers, of course. And he will have some scars even though we applied all the appropriate salves to prevent that. Shame to mar that pretty face."

Phoenix smiled bitterly to himself and shrugged. Miles would probably be more cross about the scarring than the pain, vain bastard that he was.

"It's fine."

"The district attorney's office has already been notified of his injury. The detective you were with put in the call last night. They've given him full leave with pay until he is fully recovered, so I encourage you to encourage _him_ to take this time to rest. His cases have been re-assigned." She glanced back at Phoenix. "I am under the impression he is the sort of patient who will try to overwork himself as soon as he can see straight."

Phoenix's smile deepened. "Yeah, that would be Miles."

Mask lead him up the elevator to the trauma ward and steered him into a single-occupancy room facing across the street. She excused himself and left him in the darkened room; he looked around and walked toward the window. The horizon was tinting pale purple at the edges, still deep blue at the zenith, though the stars were blurry in the Los Angeles smog. The Wright Anything Agency was barely visible if one stood on tiptoe and stared lengthwise out the side of the window. The lights were on; he wondered if the girls had set up shop there instead of going all the way back to the apartment. Hopefully one of them would remember to take Pess out before too long. The poor dog was probably beside herself with anxiety alone in the apartment. He settled back down onto his feet and collapsed into the armchair provided for family members.

He was half-asleep when somebody flicked the lights on. His first instinct was to shield his eyes and pull his cap low down his brow, but he remembered where he was and pushed it back along his hairline. A nurse was holding the door open as another nurse—a rather stunning blonde—wheeled a gurney into the room, Miles covered with a sheet supine on top, an IV rack hooked to the bedframe to wheel beside him. A man in deep blue scrubs followed them in and closed the door behind him.

Phoenix stood eagerly and hovered over Miles as the nurses checked him over quickly and moved him to his permanent bed. He was barely awake, eyelids falling shut as soon as they would flutter open, and answered inquiries with barely-audible noises. He was in a paper hospital gown, though even compared to it his skin was chalk-white beneath ugly wounds. Phoenix's stomach lurched. The first of his bruises from the fall were starting to color, deep blue and black and red and yellow, and this was only over the surfaces of his body not covered by his gown or by the dressings from the surgery. The smell of antiseptic and something abstract Phoenix could only describe as illness and wound and blood assaulted him. It was the unnerving cocktail of sterility and morbidity he associated with hospitals. He reached out for Miles' hand, realizing with relief that it was cleanly-bandaged and free of industrial nails, and gently curled his fingertips in Miles'. Miles curled his hand back in automatic response.

"Miles? Can you hear me?"

Miles made a quiet noise halfway between a grunt and a groan.

"He's still really groggy, Mr. Wright," said the nurse who was changing out his IV bag. "He's just fine, though. He'll be awake and hungry in no time."

This was the blonde nurse that had caught Phoenix's attention as soon as she walked in. She had aquamarine eyes Phoenix half-expected came from tinted contacts, but the effect was the same regardless: she was gorgeous. Phoenix felt a little guilty for ogling next to his ailing husband, but _wow_.

The other nurse, an elfin brunette with boyish-short hair, kneeled down by Phoenix's side of the bed, and he realized she was securing a catheter to the bedframe. Phoenix wrinkled his nose.

_Ew. I hope he can at least use the restroom by himself. I fuck him in the ass; I want nothing else to do with it._

"This will come out soon," the nurse said when she saw Phoenix's expression. He shrugged and turned to the man by the door, who was waiting with a chart in his hand. He was handsome, young—probably no older than Phoenix or Miles—with close-cropped, messy brown hair and glasses. The red lines from the elastic of his surgical cap and mask were still pressed into his skin. He smiled and extended his hand.

"Mr. Wright? I'm Dr. Stiles. I performed the surgery on your husband."

Phoenix took his hand and received a warm, confident handshake. Stiles nodded toward the blonde nurse, who was hooking Miles up to a vitals monitor.

"And this is Angie Thompson, my assistant. She helped with the surgery."

Angie nodded at Phoenix, smiling, and turned back to the machine. Phoenix inclined his head in a half-bow back to her, and turned back to Stiles.

"Thank you so much for taking care of him, both of you."

"Oh, jeez, it was nothing." Stiles scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "I assume Dr. Mask informed you of the extent of injuries we had to fix?"

"Yes."

"She'll be the attending physician. I've already discussed follow-up with her. Mr. Edgeworth should be fully awake soon. I'm sure he will be glad to have somebody who cares about him in here."

Phoenix nodded. _More than you'll ever know._

"Oh, and here are his personal effects." Stiles stepped over to a bolted plastic box on the end of the bed and pulled out a Ziploc baggie. "Wallet, keys, phone, et cetra. I'm afraid his clothes were beyond repair. We had to cut them off."

"That's fine. He has plenty."

"Oh, and we had to remove this during the surgery." Stiles reached into his pocket and dropped Miles' cleaned wedding ring into Phoenix's hand. "Don't read too heavily into the symbolism of that. It was just in our way. He can put it back on after his hands have healed."

Phoenix closed his hand around it. It was still warm from being in Stiles' pocket. "Thank you."

Stiles and the nurses left Phoenix to pull the armchair closer to the side of the bed—with a god-awful screech he half-expected Miles to give him an irritated look for, but he was delirious—and settled down, pulling off his cap and running his fingers through his hair. He shoved the cap into his pocket and opened up the Ziploc, going through Miles' things absently. It didn't feel like an invasion of privacy; God knows he had seen it multiple times before. He turned off the phone to preserve its battery, dropped it with the keys back into the bag, and opened Miles' leather wallet. The center vellum-covered pocket housed his driver's license, which Phoenix pulled out and looked over. Miles had not updated it since he was twenty-one, so it was one of the old-design California licenses. He looked as stern as he always looked, younger, without glasses. He still lived at the same address they lived at now. Phoenix smiled, glancing over the issue date; it was just six months after his disastrous trial for the murder of Doug Swallow, six months after he had met Mia and renewed his resolve to become a defense attorney. He was still in university, while Miles was the Demon Prosecutor Phoenix desperately wanted to save. He could not believe that was well over a decade ago. Aspects of that time period were vivid in his memory, while others were dimmed with age and well-distanced from his emotions.

He started to push the license back into its slot and smiled, halting. Beneath his license Miles had kept that ridiculous picture Maya had taken after the resolution of _State vs. Edgeworth_, all those years ago. It was all confetti and banners and despite Phoenix's annoyed expression at Maya almost tripping over him, he remembered it being a moment of pure elation, though soon to be followed by the devastation of Miles' faux suicide emo bullshit. The picture was sun-faded and creased; Miles had admitted that he kept it in his wallet ever since it was taken, even while he had disappeared. It was when he had first started having to face the fact that his feelings for Phoenix had never died. It was also when Phoenix himself was starting to realize that he loved Miles, had loved him for all these years, and still did despite how he had changed.

_Change, huh?_

He replaced the license in the wallet and set the Ziploc by the chair, settling back and sighing, watching Miles' chest rise and fall rhythmically. Phoenix could think of no better gauntlet through which to run his ideas than Miles. If they had a single weakness, they were guaranteed to be ripped to shreds. He desperately wanted to talk to him about everything—about Gumshoe's observations of the crime scene, about his conversation with Mia, about the ideas he had for a change in the court system he was realizing were not as embryonic as he at first thought, but had been long in coming—but he just rested his head by Miles' forearm and closed his eyes. He was dead asleep within moments.

By the time Phoenix woke up, it was mid-morning and Miles was far enough out of anesthesia to be sore and cross at being bedridden when he should have been prosecuting a case. Upon hearing that Klavier Gavin had taken over he was doubly-cross, convinced the 'useless pretty-boy show-off punk' would screw it up, and had sent Maya and Pearl on a mission to find food that was less sub-par than the hospital fare. Trucy had been firmly sent to school, and given that Miles was in good enough health to badger her about it, she consented to going. Phoenix was mulling in the armchair beside the hospital bed, finally able to relax now that he had seen Miles patched up and cleaned of blood—though he did look strange in a hospital gown, and found the indignity near-unbearable, much to Phoenix's amusement—and in good enough health to be back to his usual finicky, bitchy self.

"I want my laptop."

Phoenix was staring vaguely at the opposite wall, forefingers pressed together over his lips. Half of his mind was still mulling over what Mia had said.

"Well, in the words of the great philosopher Jagger, you can't always get what you want. Besides, you can hardly use your hands right now."

"Don't be glib, Wright. I have work I need to get done."

"You need to rest right now is what you need to do."

"I will rest better if I can at least check my email."

"Besides, you don't even have your glasses."

"I'm not completely blind without them."

"Would you calm down?" Phoenix gave Miles a wan look. "I already told Trucy to pick it up after school. Along with some of your other personal effects."

Miles sighed and closed his eyes. "What about Pess?"

"Apparently she damn near scratched the front door down after we left, but Trucy's taking care of her." Phoenix paused. "She was worried sick about you, Miles. She _knew_ somehow. She started freaking out right before Gumshoe called me."

Miles did not respond. Phoenix exhaled through his nose and returned to his meditations. While Miles was asleep he had desperately wanted to consult him; now he kept convincing himself his ideas were not yet fully-formed enough to communicate. He did not want to have them torn apart before he even got started.

There was a firm knock on the open doorframe. Phoenix heard Miles take in a sharp breath before he had time to register the figure in the doorway, and then, he clenched his fist in his pocket so hard he almost drew blood.

"Mr. Edgeworth? Mr. Wright?"

Kristoph Gavin stood smiling disarmingly in the doorway with an overflowing bouquet cradled in his arm. It took every inch of Phoenix's willpower to keep his face from twisting into a snarl, but he forced his anger down and smiled.

_Don't blow it. Don't blow it. Don't blow it. Channel the anger and smile because you're going to nail him. Smile high on your own power. Smile because he thinks you're not a threat._

"Kristoph." Phoenix waved languidly. _Keep on smiling, you sick bastard. Trucy would see that you're livid Miles is still alive._ "I didn't expect to see you here. Aren't you supposed to be in court right now?"

"My brother told me about Mr. Edgeworth's accident this morning. We were absolutely distraught when we heard the news." _Fuck you. Fuck. You, asshole._ "The court has been postponed to tomorrow to allow the new prosecutor time to prepare."

Gavin stepped into the room. As he moved away from the doorway Phoenix could see another person standing behind him, a small, lithe young man in a rust-red vest and pants with a defense attorney's badge on his lapel. Two of his forelocks were sticking straight up, and the rest of his hair was tied back in a low tail. He had his hands in his pockets and was standing back awkwardly, looking around the hospital room. A glint of gold caught Phoenix's eye; he was wearing a thick, garish bangle around his left wrist, carved with an angular runic pattern and very out of place with the rest of his attire.

Phoenix felt his heart drop out of his stomach. He clenched his fists tighter. He had only days ago spoken to Valant Gramarye—

"Oh, please allow me to introduce you." Gavin beckoned for the young man to come forward. "This is Apollo Justice, a new attorney of mine fresh off his Bar Exam. He's been shadowing me for a few cases. Justice, this is Phoenix Wright, a dear friend of mine."

Apollo's eyes widened momentarily at the mention of Phoenix's name, but he said nothing. He offered his hand and Phoenix took it. The kid tried to grip as hard as he could to impress, to overcompensate though there was no need, and Phoenix gave him a warm smile to try to disarm him. The poor kid was probably totally ignorant of Kristoph Gavin's true nature.

"Please to meet you," said Phoenix.

Apollo nodded and swallowed. "The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Wright."

"And this man—though he probably cannot shake hands with you right now—" Phoenix felt his hackles raise, but he lowered his head and twisted his mouth into a grin. _Fight it. Keep going._ "—is Miles Edgeworth, one of the prosecutors for the Los Angeles District Attorney's office."

Apollo paled looking over Miles' body. Miles nodded weakly to him and rested his head back on the pillows, closing his eyes.

"Do you—" Apollo shoved his hands into his pockets and scuffed the ground with his toe. The light glinted off the bangle. "—do you have reason to suspect foul play was involved, Mr. Edgeworth?"

Phoenix's head snapped up. He stared hard at Apollo, who was in turn staring at Miles intently. Miles shrugged stiffly and closed his eyes again.

"Accidents happen all the time," he said quietly. "I can think of quite a few people who would want to see me dead for bringing their true crimes to light."

Kristoph shook his head and pushed his glasses up his nose. Everybody was all smiles. The atmosphere in the room was near-snapping tension. Only Apollo saw the surface of any of this.

"A formidable loss for the city that would be."

Phoenix smiled and looked down darkly. His cap fell over his eyes; good. Hide them. "Rest assured, kid, we would not allow anybody to get away with that."

"Oh." Apollo scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Well, that's good, I guess."

Silence settled over the room. Kristoph hailed a passing nurse and asked for a vase for his flowers, then set about arranging them cheerfully while Apollo stood awkwardly in the center of the room. Phoenix watched the young man carefully, brows furrowed. Something about him captured his attention, something beyond that bangle around his wrist. It may have been a nostalgic, narcissistic reverence for a reflection of his younger self, but he had a feeling it was not that simple.

"Well, I'm afraid we have to be off for the investigation." Kristoph clapped Miles gently on the shoulder, and it took an inhuman amount of effort to keep from jumping on him and stomping his skull into the ground. "It's a shame I won't be facing you in court. I always loved our exchanges."

Miles' smile was acidic.

"Don't pretend to start giving a damn about me now, Gavin. You've always hated me, and the feeling has always been mutual."

Kristoph twitched. For a moment, the darkness of his true nature crossed his face, but he smoothed it into a smile and laughed disarmingly, turning to Apollo and Phoenix.

"You've certainly bagged yourself a feisty one. Is he always like this in the morning?"

"You have no idea."

"Well…" Kristoph clapped Apollo on the shoulder, and he started slightly. The former was still staring at Phoenix. Smiling. Always smiling. "This case of mine will be nonstop for a couple of days, but after that we should have dinner, of course. How about Sunday evening?"

"Sounds good. Come by the club, and I'll try to put you up, as always."

"Excellent." Kristoph held out his hand; Phoenix clasped it, hard. "I'll be looking forward to it, my friend."

"Yes."

It was starting to hurt Phoenix's cheeks to keep smiling like this. He gripped harder. His smile became more disarming.

"I'll be looking forward to it, my friend."

_Meet the new boss  
Same as the old boss_

* * *

That Friday, April 17, 2026, Shadi Enigmar came back from the dead.


	7. Memory 06: Turn and Face the Stranger

**Memory 06: Turn and Face the Stranger**

April 17, 4:32 AM  
Hickfield Clinic  
Room 240

Edgeworth was sore when he woke up. Despite taking preemptive steroids the swelling around his wounds was still pretty bad, and almost every surface of his body was bruised. He groaned and closed his eyes again, trying to will his body back asleep, but now that he was awake the pain was keeping him up.

"You okay, Mr. Edgeworth?"

Edgeworth started—hissing with the pain that came with tensing his muscles so suddenly—and gingerly turned his head to face the chair by his bed. Maggey Byrde—Gumshoe, whatever she went by now—was watching him in concern. Her eyes widened.

"Wow, you really are all beat up."

Edgeworth didn't reply. Blinked, mind swimming up. He glanced at the digital clock beside his bed. Glanced back at Maggey.

"I mean—I didn't mean no offence, sir. I hope you're not mad I scared you. Do you need any water or anything?"

Edgeworth's tongue finally caught up with his brain. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Maggey saluted. "Sir, we were told to keep you from doing anything stupid, especially since you need your rest right now."

"…what the hell are you talking about?"

"Mr. Wright told us to stay with you, sir."

"Mr… _what_?" Edgeworth leaned forward a little. "Why? He hasn't gotten himself thrown in prison or something, has he?"

Maggey did not respond, though she twitched, firming her jaw, still saluting. Edgeworth sat up, ignoring the screaming pain in his abdomen, and leaned forward, glowering.

"_Has he_?"

He knew he was damn good at glaring. He knew he probably looked that much more terrifying with his nose splinted and his face stitched together and ugly mottled shades of bruise. Maggey's hand wavered slightly, though she kept staring over Edgeworth's head.

"Sir, you need to stay in bed."

"Is he okay?"

Maggey dropped her salute and sighed, clutching her arm and staring sidelong at the floor.

"He's… well…" Her eyes flickered up to Edgeworth. "Yeah, I guess."

"Damn it, woman; tell me what he's done to himself right now or I swear to God…"

"You swear to God what, sir?"

He settled for just glaring at her with all the strength he could muster and hoped she got the general idea. _It's a rhetorical statement; I don't need your maudlin faux-innocent banter right now._

Maggey sighed again.

"He's fine. He's just being held at the detention center as a murder suspect."

"Oh, that's _all_, huh?"

Maggey crossed her arms. "Well, at least he's not hurt!"

"What happened?"

"I don't know myself. I ran into him at the police station since I was catching up on some paperwork, and he told me to come down here and make sure you don't hurt yourself doing something stupid. He said you would if you weren't stopped."

"You don't know any details about the case? Victim, evidence, prosecutor, defense, bloody _anything_?"

"I'm afraid not, sir." She paused, seeing clearly what Edgeworth was saying. "You can't prosecute him, sir. They won't let you prosecute your husband, and you're too hurt to even stand right now."

"What about defending him? God, the idiot's not going to try to defend _himself_, is he?"

"No idea, sir."

"Does he already have an attorney?"

"I don't know. Maybe Mr. Gavin, since they're such good friends and all."

Ice drove into the pit of Edgeworth's stomach. He bit back bile.

"He wouldn't be that stupid."

Maggey did not respond. He sat up gingerly, raising his gauze-bound hand to brush his hair out of his face—and his hand was halted, snapped by a tether. The pain shot up his arm, jarred the elbow he had dislocated agonizingly. He bit back a moan of pain, vision going out momentarily, and tugged the other arm gently. His vision cleared. Both wrists were cuffed to the bed in cushiony, medical-plush restraints. They were soft, but the straps held firm. He very slowly arced his good leg across the bed until another strap halted it. He slid it back. For all that he was fuzzy with morphine, it did not take long for the implication to hit.

"What the hell is this?"

"I'm real sorry, sir." Maggey saluted again. Edgeworth wanted to smack her hand down. "When Dr. Mask came by we told her what had happened, and she put you in those restraints. She says you absolutely can't stand up right now. Your leg won't take your body's weight yet." Maggey lowered her hand. "She said we should take them off once we've made you promise you won't go off and do something crazy."

"And what would you do if I did?"

Maggey set her jaw. "I'd have to stop you, sir."

Edgeworth seethed. Maggey had her hands on her hips, right hand comfortably close to her gun. He knew Maggey would never shoot him no matter what he did, but he also knew no matter what happened, he could never bring himself to risk hurting Maggey. If only it were Gumshoe; Edgeworth would have no qualms about knocking out that ham-handed lug, but grappling with a pregnant woman, even one well-trained in combat, was out of the question. And Phoenix knew that. Bastard.

"Mr. Wright doesn't want you to hurt yourself or worry, sir." Her voice had softened. "He told me that he has everything under control."

Edgeworth sighed and rested back onto his pillows, closing his eyes.

"Where's your kid, anyway?"

Maggey huffed. "He _could_ be with my husband."

"He's not. Detective Gumshoe is _here_. You kept saying 'we' were here to watch me, and you two tend to travel as a set."

Maggey watched him warily for a moment, gauging his sincerity. "We called in a favor from Officer Meekins. He's watching him for us."

Edgeworth cracked his eyes and stared sidelong at Maggey. He found himself wondering, not for the first time, if he was obligated to call Child Protective Services on these idiots.

"Meekins. Really."

"He's great with kids, sir. He'll make a great daddy someday."

The door opened, flooding the dark room with halogen light from the hallway. Gumshoe slid in and closed the door behind him, then sat down beside Maggey and handed her what looked to Edgeworth like an ice cream bar box. She thanked him quietly and sat down, tearing into it. Gumshoe tore open a bag of crisps, over-pulling and scattering crumbs all over the place. He looked around guiltily, then held the open bag in Edgeworth's direction.

"Hi, sir. You hungry?"

Edgeworth glared at him until he withdrew meekly. The bag rustled. Munching. It was hard to see in the dark without glasses.

"Please don't be mad at us, sir," he said around munches. Edgeworth wanted to smack him and ask if he was raised in a barn.

Edgeworth made a vague dismissive noise and raised his hands to rub his temples, only to have them halted by the tethers at half-height. He sighed and dropped them.

"You can take me out of these damn things. I promise I'm not going to go anywhere. I can't. The doctor is right; my leg would snap if I tried to stand on it now."

"That's the spirit, sir."

Gumshoe set his chips down next to Maggey, the latter of whom immediately seized upon them as Gumshoe removed Edgeworth's restraints with a loud rip of Velcro. Edgeworth sighed and dropped back into the pillows. If not for the morphine he was sure he would have a massive headache coming on. Also if not for the morphine he knew he would be even more manic and wound-up than he was, but also because of the morphine, he was less inclined to let his self-awareness of the drop in his own vigilance bother him.

"Detective, you should be sleeping right now this late in your pregnancy."

"I'm not made of glass!"

"Hypocritical of you to come here and keep vigil to make sure I don't hurt myself. I am not made of glass either."

"With all due respect, Sir, I can still walk."

She had mumbled that around a mouthful of crisps. Gumshoe was watching the bag in her lap with dejected longing, but let it go after a moment and turned back to Edgeworth.

"Has Mr. Wright called you yet, Sir?"

"No. The first news I got of any of this was from your wife." Edgeworth covered his eyes lightly with his bandaged hand, a vague mimic of running his fingers over his eyes. "I assume he would use his phone call on an attorney, since I apparently can't go to court."

"Maybe, Sir. It's against the law to put the call log up on the server, so you won't know unless you ask him."

_The server._

"Detective, my laptop is sitting on that rolling table against the wall. Roll that table over the bed. Make sure it is plugged in."

Maggey and Gumshoe paused. "Which one of us?"

"Either. I don't care."

"It's not going to be up there, Sir," said Maggey as Gumshoe stood and wheeled the table over Edgeworth's thighs. Edgeworth pushed himself up slowly.

"I know that."

Edgeworth loathed having his hands out of commission like this. The gauze binding his fingers together in mittens made it damn near impossible to catch the lip of the laptop's cover and push it open. He awkwardly pressed the 'on' button, and the computer came out of standby. This was where it got tedious. Maybe it was because he had been raised using a keyboard, but he much preferred just to type.

"Voice recognition on." A minimalist icon of a talking head, side-on like Pac-Man with arcs coming out of its mouth, lit up under the screen. "Login to Miles Edgeworth. Open Firefox browser. Open prosecutor's office website. Login to secure server."

The computer flashed through his commands as he spoke them. It automatically filled out the stored password, acting on recognition of Edgeworth's voice, and logged him into the server. A schedule of this week's trials was listed in a side-panel. He looked through them, and his stomach dropped when he saw the name on the screen. This was real. He could not deny that anymore.

"Click link 'State V-period-space Wright'. No… 'Wright.' W-R-I—yes, that one."

He swore under his breath when the data pulled up. Not much of it was on there, and the main body of the page read '_More information forthcoming'_. The left sidebar was filled out. Defendant: Wright, Phoenix. Crime: Second-degree murder. Victim: Smith, Shadi, whoever the hell that was. Phoenix must have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time again. That's what he gets for placing himself in the underbelly of society on a nightly basis. Location/Time: Courtroom No. 2, Los Angeles District Court, 10:00 AM, Monday, 20 April 2026. Prosecutor: Payne, Winston. Defense: Gavin Law Offices."

"Well, look at that." Edgeworth forgot that Gumshoe had been hovering over his shoulder. "He did call Mr. Gavin for help after all."

"Shut up."

Edgeworth rested his forehead gingerly in his gauzed hand. Maybe that headache was going to force its way through the morphine after all.

_Wright, you idiot. What the hell are you playing at?_

"Where's Trucy?"

"I… I don't know, sir," said Maggey. "She wasn't at the police station. I don't know if she even knows what happened yet."_._

Edgeworth fished his phone off his bedside table and hit 'on', told the phone to dial Trucy. It went straight to voicemail.

"Hey, you've reached Trucy Wright!" The recording was obnoxiously chirpy. "I'm sorry I'm not here right now, but if you leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as possible! Thanks!" _Beep._

"Trucy, it's Papa Miles. I need you to call me back as soon as you get this. I don't care what time it is."

He hung up and sighed heavily, closing his eyes. He desperately needed to talk to Phoenix. He had a vague idea of why he was trying to pull this—he would only request Gavin's defense if it could result in entrapment, and he would not knowingly put himself at risk needlessly. _Knowingly_. Phoenix was smarter than he acted sometimes, but he had a tendency to jump into things and hammer out the details as he went along. God knows it had burned him before, for all that he usually managed to pull something brilliant out of his arse at the last moment. And the casual observer underestimated the sway his emotions had over him—especially now that he had mastered the art of appearing apathetic. They could goad him into running full-tilt into oncoming traffic if he thought it was a good idea at the time.

Miles kept telling himself that had he not been hospitalized, Phoenix would let him in on this. This was not the time to act bitchy and scorned. Phoenix could also be secretive when he knew Miles would only disapprove and tear his ideas to pieces; he had made up his mind and did not want to be confused by the facts, or he had made some insane intuitive leap Miles was loathe to admit was, more often than not, _right_. He half-suspected Phoenix had been up to something ever since he had landed in the hospital; Phoenix had been distant and pensive, unusually quiet. Miles knew it was not at all personally directed at him—Phoenix's warmth and affection had not waned in the slightest—and he wondered when Phoenix was going to let him in on whatever the hell he was mulling over. Hell, it would be bloody hypocritical of him _not_ to, after paying so much lip service to having no secrets and trusting each other.

"_First and foremost, you're my best friend. Nothing's ever going to change that."_

"Mr. Edgeworth? Are you okay?"

_I still don't know what I was waiting for__  
And my time was running wild__  
A million dead-end streets  
__Every time I thought I'd got it made  
It seemed the taste was not so sweet_

"…yes." Miles opened his eyes. "I'm fine."

His phone rang. He grabbed it up awkwardly, expecting to see Trucy on his caller ID, but was just as glad to see it was the Detention Center. He took a deep breath and pressed the 'answer' button.

"You insane bastard! What the hell do you think you're playing at?"

"Hi, honey!" Phoenix sounded far, far too happy for a man who was being held on suspicion of murder. "Guess where I am."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know God damn well what I'm talking about! Gavin? GAVIN?"

"What about Kristoph?"

That faux-innocence wasn't fooling anybody. Miles almost found it insulting and desperately wanted to say so, but the rational side of his brain knew that they could not talk openly about this over the Detention Center line. For all that this was supposed to be a confidential call, he knew damn well it was not. He had used recordings of such calls in cases many times before. He half-considered demanding that Gumshoe wheel him out of the hospital and give him a ride to the Detention Center _right now_, but even there their conversation was not guaranteed private.

"Honey, you there?"

"Cut the 'honey' bullshit. Of all the times for you to pull an insane stunt like this, it has to be when I'm laid up here in the hospital."

"I think you need to have your morphine drip increased. You sound tense."

Had Miles less self-control, he would have punched something.

"Phoenix." His voice was dangerously quiet. "You have to tell me what's going on. This is—this is madness." He heard Phoenix take a breath. "Don't you say it."

"This is Sparta?"

Miles wished the Detention Center had sprung the money to install the video uplink. He wished the force of his glare could penetrate the phone. Phoenix laughed as though sensing his reaction.

"This isn't funny."

"I don't know why you're acting like I _planned_ this to happen tonight. This whole mess was just Godawful timing. I also don't know why you assume Kristoph is handling my defense."

"The website lists Gavin Law Offices—"

Miles stopped cold. He could almost feel that smug bastard's satisfaction across the airwaves.

"…the kid. You're having that apprentice of his handle your defense. Justice."

"He's not an apprentice anymore. Monday he's a full-fledged attorney."

"This is his first trial?"

"We've all got to start somewhere."

"Phoenix, this is insane. He's a kid. One of those vocational-school lawyers. Do you think you can manipulate him from the defendant's stand or something? Run this whole thing yourself? Gavin won't allow it."

"He's not just a kid, Miles."

"What, has he got magical powers or something? Do you think that he's some sort of incorruptible martyr who will risk everything in the name of Truth and Justice? Going up against Gavin will cost him his job, at the very least. The kid won't do it. He _can't_ do it, not this early into his career. Besides, you know damn well he won't suspect his mentor unless _you_ put that idea into his head. He's too trusting. Gavin's too charismatic." He paused. "God, you _do_ want to run this show, don't you?"

Phoenix did not reply.

Edgeworth continued, "I know he seems earnest, but honestly, after Engarde you'd think that whole 'fresh as a spring breeze' persona wouldn't fool you anymore."

_So I turned myself to face me  
But I've never caught a glimpse  
Of how the others must see the faker  
I'm much too fast to take that test_

Miles knew Phoenix was staring, eyes hardened with cynicism and fatigue over the past seven years. He continued anyway.

"You can't do this. You'd take an innocent kid down in flames with you if this fails. You might not rise out of the ashes this time. Don't blow this. This isn't the time to reveal our hand."

"The Demon Prosecutor worried about one innocent life ruined in the quest for Greater Justice?"

"Wright…"

It was below the belt. They both knew it. It was in the past, and there they swore it would stay; it was a topic _never_ to be used as ammunition. They had reconciled Edgeworth's past behavior many times over, his rationale and logic and pathology, and Phoenix had understood that ultimately Miles did what he thought was right at the time—and that is all anybody can ever do. But, they both knew it still hurt. Edgeworth's grip tightened on the phone; blood seeped through his gauze.

"I'm sorry, Miles." Phoenix's voice was quiet. "That was unfair."

Edgeworth did not reply, tongue sandpaper-dry. He knew anything he said would be an acidic insult, an attempt to take an eye for an eye, but there was no point in escalating this.

"I won't let the kid fall," Phoenix continued. "If the worst-case scenario occurs I know I can bail him out."

The pain in Edgeworth's hand grounded him, kept his mind sharp and focused. Phoenix sighed.

"Trust me." Phoenix's voice had gotten quiet. "Please. You've got to trust me. I promise I know what I'm doing. This is my chance. It may be the only one I ever get to make things right."

Blood bloomed through the gauze.

"Miles. I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have said that. I'm so sorry."

There was a long silence. Finally, Miles took a deep breath.

"Fine. But you have to promise that if you screw this up, I get to handle your appeal."

* * *

Edgeworth tried to remember the last time he had felt this helpless.

The past two days had been slow torture. He was still too-soon post-op to go to the detention center, Phoenix's cell phone had of course been confiscated, and his phone call had already been used up. Maya and Pearl had reluctantly returned to Kurain before Phoenix was jailed, ordering Miles to get plenty of rest, and Miles could not bring himself to call them and worry them sick with Phoenix's theatrics when they had work to catch up on. He would contact them if things went to hell. He found himself succumbing to the desire to sleep hours at a time, hoping it would help the time pass.

He had always been a man who was content keeping his own company. Loneliness was familiar to him; he had never fraternized with co-workers or schoolmates, even in university. In the past this loneliness only occasionally got to him; even after he and Phoenix had started 'dating', he guessed you'd call it, or become boyfriends or whatever, and when he had still been in Europe, he had accustomed himself to his physical absence, painful though it was. Now that he was accustomed to Phoenix's constant company, he felt a gaping hole by the side of his bed where Phoenix's chair should have been. Despite occupying his waking hours with reading, digging through any new developments on Wright's case on the district court's server, and watching downloads of old _Steel Samurai_ episodes, those two days dragged like hell.

He knew Phoenix was all right. He was probably bored and lonely stuck in the Detention Center, picking through the paltry library of used books provided to prisoners and watching nonstop CNN drivel in the common room, but Miles had sensed no emotional distress when they had last talked. He hoped that confident resolution and the calm inherent therein would sustain Phoenix until the trial. He knew none of the criminals Phoenix had helped put away were at that Detention Center—they were all in the State Prison if they had not already been executed—so he at least did not have to worry about Phoenix getting skived in the shower or something.

He wondered if Phoenix missed him, and was thinking about him too.

Trucy finally came back on the radar the morning after the murder. She had shown up in Miles' hospital room with a red leather rose she had soaked in some sort of healing oil, and had insisted on anointing various aspects of his hospital room—doorframe, bedframe, windowframe, etc—with a rag soaked in "Fiery Wall of Protection" or something like that. She said it would help protect him from directed malice and further attacks against his person. It smelled lovely, and it would make her feel better, so he let her go nuts, and for once did not ask her how she could so easily succumb to magical thinking when she herself, by trade, took advantage of the magical thinking of others. Those arguments never ended productively for anybody.

He remembered with a pang of guilt that Monday was the full moon, and he had promised Trucy he would finally drive her down to Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, as he had not been able to make it for some months now. She had a venerable collection she had built up over the years and made a hobby out of designating scents that 'suited' him or Phoenix—many of which, Miles had to admit, did make handsome colognes, a few of which he had gotten for himself. While at the store she liked to shove scent mixes under his and Phoenix's noses and chirp—loudly, to everybody within earshot—that they had various oils for igniting sexual passion and refreshing the euphoria of newfound love for couples who had been together for years. Miles had a painful memory of Trucy bouncing up to them holding out a bottle and saying "Look! This one is for gay couples!" which had Phoenix laughing and Miles trying to hide his embarrassment with a scowl.

"You're going to school on Monday."

Trucy settled back down on her feet from standing on tiptoe to anoint the doorframe as far up as she could reach and crossed her arms, rag dangling from one hand. She had been rambling about how she hadn't seen the courthouse in quite a while, and wondered if it had changed at all since the last time she was down there, when Edgeworth had spoken.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Phoenix would agree with me."

"No, he wouldn't."

"Really? Why not?"

"He has a mission for me."

"Really." Miles fought to keep the interest out of his voice. "What mission might this be, missy?"

Trucy held her finger up to her lips and smirked. "It's a secret."

"Uh-huh." Miles desperately wished he could cross his arms without his dislocated elbow screaming in agony. He settled for glaring. "Talk."

"That would ruin the surprise on Monday. You're going to watch the show, aren't you?"

"Yes." Miles lowered his head slightly, still glowering. "I see 'Daddy' has instilled in you a disturbing tendency toward approaching serious matters with a theatrical flair."

"I already had that."

"Right. The Amazing Mr. Hat trick. Oh no—"

Trucy's cape was already fluttering out to the side as Mr. Hat unfurled; she jumped slightly, and he scooped her hat onto his head.

"Do you have a problem with me, Papa Miles?"

Mr. Hat spoke with an exaggeratedly-deep version of Trucy's voice, though Trucy's lips did not move at all. Edgeworth had to admit in spite of himself her ventriloquism was impressive.

"Are you even old enough to remember _South Park_?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Trucy's daddy named me. Her… real daddy."

Mr. Hat stopped moving, and Trucy slackened the elbow she was using to control him. He slouched slightly. Miles felt like kicking himself in the balls.

"Trucy." His voice was quiet. "You were at Borsht Bowl on the night of the murder. What did you see? What do you know?"

"I actually wasn't," Trucy said in her own voice. She pulled Mr. Hat back into her cape.

"Trucy, come on. You can talk to me."

"I'm telling the truth."

"Are you ever around when he eats dinner with Kristoph Gavin?"

"…now that you mention it, no." She twisted her toe on the ground. "Daddy only calls me in when he's going to play a really hard opponent. He can usually manage on his own. I was at the Wonder Bar all night."

"So his opponent wasn't a very good player?"

"Not necessarily. I mean, he's really good at reading people—really good—but he's not as good as me. He wouldn't take on the guy if he wasn't sure he could win. He'd risk wrecking his perfect win record. Then we'd be out a job."

"You mean he'd have to get a _real_ job and you'd have to go to bed at a decent hour and focus on your studies like any normal ninth grader."

Trucy scowled at him. "In the first place, I don't need formal schooling. I'm learning my real trade outside school. School teaches me nothing. I already know how to read and think and do basic math; I don't need all this other bullshit they teach us."

"Must you be so vulgar?"

"If I need to know it, I can teach myself. Otherwise, school is a waste of time."

"While I have to agree with you that American high schools are a waste of time and little more than holding pins for hooligans, you still need to graduate."

Trucy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. In the second place, who are you to judge what a 'real job' is? Who is society to judge?"

Miles sighed. He should have known by now that trying to convince a rebellious teenager that playing piano and playing poker is not a 'real job' because it's _just not_ was impossible, but he kept coming back to this argument in the vain hope that maybe _this time_ Trucy would understand.

He could not control Phoenix's actions. That had taken him damn near thirty-three years to learn, and he still had trouble with that concept. But damned if he was going to let his daughter follow the same path, or make these decisions while she was too young to fully understand the consequences. At no point in her life had she had a conventional upbringing—first a circus family, then a man trying to come to terms with being screwed by The System by rejecting it and taking his daughter along that path with him.

Unfortunately, because of that upbringing she had seen that it was possible to succeed, but in seeing that possibility she was blinded to the very real chance that she could screw her life up. She had not heard any of the regrets the adults in her life had regarding their life choices. She had no realistic picture of what it meant to live off the beaten path. She had always been at the receiving end of adults' exaltations of the road less traveled, probably while they were trying to convince themselves as much as convince her, trying to feed off her youthful optimism to give themselves courage to continue.

"Trucy, I'm going insane here. Please tell me what fool thing your father has you doing now. He couldn't speak freely over the phone from the Detention Center."

Not for the first time, Miles wished he had that magatama back for just a moment. He had the feeling Trucy would be crawling with Psycho Locks or whatever the hell they were called.

"…I can't tell you." Trucy looked at the ground awkwardly. "He said you'd get real mad if you found out."

_Oh, sure. That's supposed to get me off the chase._

"Trucy Alice Wright, you tell me what your father told you to do _right now_."

"He told me to make up an ace of spades with a drop of blood on it because Gavin stole it from the crime scene and if he can present it in court Mr. Gavin won't be able to object and say it's fake because if he knows it's fake that it means he's the murderer."

It had come out in a rush. Trucy blushed, realizing what she had just spilled, and stared at the ground, twisting her toe. Edgeworth's tongue felt dry.

"He's asking you to forge evidence?"

Trucy looked up and clenched her fists. "It isn't _like that_!"

"Really? How is it not _like that_? Because that's exactly what it sounds like to me."

"He knew you'd react like this! That's why he didn't want to tell you!"

"Of _course_ I'm going to react like this!"

"That's not fair! Daddy said you've done something like this before because you knew it was the right thing to do, even though it was against the rules!"

"Trucy…"

"He said it's all right because it'll only work if Mr. Gavin is the killer, and if he's not, nothing's going to come out of it."

"That's…" Edgeworth gently massaged his temples. "…yes, that may be what he thinks will happen, but he should know damn well by now that evidence can have implications nobody foresaw in the beginning."

"I know he won't let that happen."

"And what if his attorney _does_ let it happen, huh? He may not be as in control of the whole situation as he thinks he is."

"He does. Mr. Gavin is the real killer. He… he has evidence that he is. Just not concrete. It's something Mr. Gavin said, he said. He has to trap Mr. Gavin into slipping it up in court. That's all this is." Trucy paused, quailing under Miles' glare. "He said it's a backup. He said he can't take any chances of Gavin getting away. He said sometimes, you have to get yourself dirty so good people don't have to."

Miles arched his eyebrow. "Uncharacteristically elegant of him."

"Well, it's like…" Trucy thought for a moment. "You remember _The Dark Knight_, don't you?"

"The Batman movie? Yes."

"Well, you remember how at the end of the movie Batman said he was going to be the 'bad guy' because it was what Gotham City needed at that point, and he was going to do the stuff that was 'against the rules' that the cops couldn't do because he was willing to be a scapegoat?"

"…I don't think that's exactly what happened, if I recall correctly. I thought he just took the fall for Harvey Dent."

"You're missing the point!"

"What? Phoenix is the Batman?"

"No! Grrr." Trucy crossed her arms and thought for a moment. "He's the hero we need right now, but not the hero we deserve. You know, that whole thing. He can do what's 'against the rules' and be the 'bad guy' even though it's the right thing to do, and it needs to be done."

'_Hero', huh?_

Edgeworth looked away, weakly grasping the sleeve of his gown with his injured hand, and furrowed his eyebrows in thought.

"I fail to see the heroics in this," he said quietly, though he barely heard his own words. Hero?

Trucy did not hear him. She was gazing off into the distance thoughtfully.

"Though I guess you'd have to be Harvey Dent."

"What? He's taking the fall for my crimes?"

"No! I just mean you're both prosecutors."

"Now you're confusing me."

"Do you think if a guy tried to shoot you from the witness stand, you'd take the gun away and punch him in the face?"

"I'd, uh, like to think so." Miles narrowed his eyes. "And you're not derailing this conversation."

"…I'm still not going to school on Monday."

"Do _you_ think what you're doing is ethical?"

Trucy bit her lip and stared at the ground, brows furrowed. She looked up and nodded firmly.

"Because it's set up so that it only works if Mr. Gavin's guilty. And I'm not making anything up that wasn't at the crime scene. I'm just replicating what was actually there. And I know it's right. I know it, and you know it, and Daddy knows it. Screw the rules." Trucy looked dead-set. "I want to stop this murdering bastard before he can hurt more people!"

_Just gonna have to be a different man_

Miles smile to himself ruefully, still glancing sidelong at the floor.

_Ten years ago, your father would understand where you were coming from. Ten years ago, your father would never have consented to this. I know he knows the ice he treads is thin—he saw the effect of DL-6 and SL-9, he realized what had to be done with Engarde and Tigre and why Maya lied to save Diego Armando. It was what was right, even if sometimes, it can be very, very wrong._

_You've changed, Wright._

_You're not so simple anymore. You're not that innocent._

_Besides, if all else fails, you had that stupid camera in your hat on, didn't you?_

* * *

_Time may change me  
But I can't trace time_

* * *

April 20, 10:00 AM  
Hickfield Clinic  
Room 240

_Oh my God, he is wearing that hat in court._

Miles had live video feed of the courtroom's proceedings pulled up on his laptop and was sipping coffee, awkwardly cupping the mug with his bound hands and trying to ward off the sedative effects of his pain medication. The net effect was that he was very shaky and felt like he was going to pass out. He had to keep resting his head back on the pillows and closing his eyes until the head rush crashed down and his vision came back. It was like perpetually standing up too fast.

It would take an idiot not to recognize the 'Shadi Smith' given in the court record. Miles confirmed his suspicions by looking up a photograph of Shadi Enigmar in the district court's archives, and sure enough, these men were one and the same, dead-ringers of one another. This was also confirmed by Phoenix's sudden acquisition of the locket with Trucy's picture in it, and Edgeworth noticed that Phoenix carefully never actually _denied_ that he took the locket from Smith—saying his daughter was in it was true and enough to throw the lawyers off the chase. Though it was his husband's neck on the line he wanted to smack the shit out of Payne for not objecting to that. That was a classic maneuver.

Trucy's biological father was dead. He did not relish the idea of having to explain that to her.

It was a good thing the Judge was such a senile idiot, and that Payne did not recognize this man; the connection between Wright and Enigmar provided far more motive than a contested poker game that—so the court had been told—was not even being played for money. Gavin _had_ to be tangentially involved with Enigmar somehow—Edgeworth's intuition was vehement on this—but Wright was more directly and publicly-linked to this man. Enigmar's trial had gotten him disbarred. Short, sweet, simple motive. Revenge as a dish best served seven-years cold.

_Seven years, huh…_

Seven years' disappearance declared a missing person legally dead. This was the seventh anniversary of that case. So, Enigmar goes to visit Wright on the day he becomes 'dead'. Why? If that did not come out in the course of this trial, he was going to _grill_ Phoenix on that point.

Miles followed the trial with rapt attention. It was strange to see the courtroom he so often dominated—even with that damned broken seat still up in the galley—from such a distance. The web-camera was bolted in the center of the lower-floor of the galley, and though the resolution on web-cameras had greatly improved since their introduction, the picture was by no means high-definition. The judge was in his place, and he was used to seeing Payne and Gavin behind their respective benches, but Phoenix did not belong behind the defendant's stand—or the witness's stand, as the case may be. He lounged nonchalantly as though this were a joke, clad slovenly in track pants (oh sweet God, Edgeworth suddenly thought, I hope he's not going commando today), sandals, a ratty sweatshirt, and that ludicrous hat, glibly answering questions and chiding the lawyers and judge with condescending playfulness. Edgeworth worried his confidence was overbloated. _Honestly_; he knew Phoenix was becoming increasingly aware of the cracks in the legal system and how arbitrary so much of it was, but his irreverent attitude would have been infuriating to anybody who did not know him.

Miles shook his head at Apollo Justice multiple times—the kid was overeager, jumping over details he only realized were important when Gavin or Phoenix pointed them out to him. There were times when it felt like a battle between Gavin and Wright, with Justice a shared pawn. Justice's body language made his deference to Gavin painfully clear. He leaned slightly toward him as though comforted by his presence and guidance.

_When the chips are down, the kid's going to side with his boss. His job is on the line. He's not going to risk that for a disgraced ex-attorney. You've got nothing to offer him._

_You trust too easily and freely in the inherent good in others. This trust is EXACTLY what got you disbarred, Phoenix._

It finally came down to that. The trial continued, and Phoenix slowly manipulated proceedings to point toward Gavin's guilt. Miles closed his eyes. Breathed. Decision time.

_Phoenix, this is when your faith would pay off._

It was clear Justice was struggling. He knew the stakes of the trial now. He clenched his fists, brows furrowed. Stared hard at Phoenix. Finally, he straightened. His voice was clear when he spoke.

"The defense would like to request that Mr. Wright testify to the court!"

"Et tu, Justice?" Gavin stared straight ahead, face calm, unreadable. His eyes focused on Phoenix. "You would betray me, your teacher?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Gavin. This isn't about loyalty... This is about the truth!"

Miles smiled to himself. Maybe this kid had a backbone and a mind of his own after all.

It was a sick pleasure to watch Gavin during the testimony and cross-examination. He had told his protégé that Wright was lying, that it was his duty to expose him. Though to the casual observer Gavin seemed perfectly calm and in control of the situation, Edgeworth knew him well enough to see that he was tense, on the verge of the sick, twisted smile he adopted when he was cornered. The exchange between him and Phoenix was now transparently dripping with venom, cutting.

And when Phoenix revealed that he had recorded their phone conversation, and had replaced the hat on the victim's head at the crime scene, Miles grinned. They got him. They finally had the bastard cornered. This was what Phoenix had been talking about.

The Judge called a recess. Edgeworth rested his head back on the pillows, closing his eyes, and drifted into a semi-lucid catnap. He heard—integrated oddly into his dream, an almost astral-projection-like awareness that he was in the courthouse—the judge call the trial back into succession. He saw himself as though standing in the corner of the court floor by the defense's bench, observing things with a stunning clarity. Kristoph Gavin was called to the stand. Payne stuttered with his usual lack of presence whenever the trial took a route he had not anticipated.

Edgeworth half-processed the dialogue, seeing himself standing behind the defense's bench—seamlessly gliding there with the odd logic of dreams—next to Phoenix, clean-shaven in his cheap navy suit. He wanted to thread his fingers with his husband's and squeeze his hand encouragingly, tell him, somehow, that he was there with him.

He missed that hurried, haphazard energy. He wanted to hear him yell—

"OBJECTION!"

It was like being punched in the stomach.

Miles' eyes snapped open, and he was back in the hospital, watching the trial on his laptop. He sat up and stared at the screen.

He was suddenly light-headed, heady with excitement. There was the Phoenix he had known standing behind the defense's table, straight back, eyes hard and smoldering, pointing toward Payne's table. It was as though seven years' worth of jaded dullness, of cynical irreverence and purred sarcasm, had sloughed off. The man suddenly seemed misplaced in a gray sweater and a knit cap; he should be wearing a navy suit, with his hair free.

Edgeworth realized how fast his heart was pounding, and he placed his fingertips on his neck, feeling his pulse as Phoenix spoke in his steady, forceful voice, reveling in his own shallow breathing. He remembered standing in the defendant's podium, watching that same youthful, determined power, feeling it course through him. He remembered standing across from Wright on the receiving end of that power, aimed at him, tearing his flawed and misguided tactics apart, leaving him breathless with the raw power of The Fool who believed in his clients. This was the man who never, ever, ever gave up.

_Time may change me_

This was Phoenix Wright in his element.

_But I can't trace time_

Edgeworth's hand moved down toward his heart, and he clenched his fingers, mimicking the feeling that his heart was being ripped out. His resolve to get Phoenix his bar back was hardened once again in his stomach; the complacent resolve he had cultivated over the years was melting away. Fuck this inept piano playing and the Wright Talent Agency bullshit. It was a refracted shadow of who Phoenix Wright really was.

_They say you can never go home._

Edgeworth smiled to himself, half-cynical, half-warm with hope and memory.

_You've changed, Wright. But in all the ways that matter you're still the same._

* * *

Edgeworth had finally allowed himself to pass out after the trial's conclusion, relaxed and near-giddy with the cocktail of Kristoph's downfall, Phoenix's victory, something like four cups of coffee, and being drugged off his ass. He awoke to find that it was late evening, but the lights in his hospital room were on. Phoenix was perched on the chair beside his bed, slurping lo mein from a carry-out container with wooden chopsticks and reading a book he had laid across his knee, spine bent back. The golden locket around his neck glinted in the lamplight. Miles turned over gingerly and watched him. He seemed engrossed in the book, awkwardly turning pages with his free hand and holding them down with his elbow. When he angled his head in the light properly a bruise became evident under his eye. Edgeworth arched his eyebrow.

"What did you do to deserve that?"

Phoenix started slightly and looked up, then grinned at Edgeworth. He looked as though a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"Oh, this?" He touched under his eye with his free hand. The book's page flapped over, and Phoenix nudged it back flat with his fingertips before pinning it down with his elbow again. "I offended a young attorney's sense of justice."

"You do realize you deserve that, dragging your daughter and that young man into your debauchery."

Phoenix laughed. "And did I offend your sense of justice, Prosecutor Edgeworth?"

"Of the many sensibilities of mine you _do_ offend, 'justice' is not one of them." He paused. Phoenix was still smiling, but unease was clearly visible in his expression. "You handled the situation in such a way as to ensure that justice would be served. Ultimately, you did not alter the truth to anybody's detriment."

Phoenix's smile broadened in relief. "Not so black and white anymore, are you?"

_I watch the ripples change their size  
But never leave the stream  
Of warm impermanence and  
So the days float through my eyes  
But still the days seem the same_

"Neither are you." Edgeworth glared at him. "But you do realize how utterly foolish you were, pulling a stunt like that out of the blue. And don't tell me it was a 'now or never' situation; I damn well know that."

Phoenix's smile waned.

"Gavin had to be stopped. He almost _killed_ you, Miles. It took every scrap of willpower I had not to rip his face off right then and there. It… sickened me to pretend to be his friend. I'm stunned I was able to hold out this long."

"In all fairness, we have no conclusive evidence it was Gavin. Hell, we only have vague circumstantial evidence and conjecture."

Phoenix did not reply. He stared vaguely over Miles' head, brows knit, and removed his cap, turning it over in his hands. He stared at the pin on its hem.

"It's not over yet."

_And these children that you spit on__  
As they try to change their worlds  
Are immune to your consultations  
They're quite aware of what they're going through_

Miles was silent for a moment.

"You do realize how lucky you are nobody's realized how much wiring you have in that damn hat."

"I pulled the wiring out and hid it in the Hydeout before I was arrested. I'm glad nobody found it. Since you were in the hospital, I had nobody at home to make a backup tape of the footage I got that night."

Miles arched his eyebrows. "Oh?"

Phoenix had pulled the hem aside to reveal a black cartridge wired into the setup, and pressed on the lip of a memory card to dislodge it. He pulled it out and held it up, smirking triumphantly.

"Come on, Miles. You didn't think I'd ask Trucy to forge that card if I did not have backup to prove it was there during the game, did you?"

"Theoretically, you never actually saw the card with blood on it."

Phoenix laughed. "Touché, touché. But blood splatter analysis would show I was right. There should have been a blood splatter within that radius around Smith."

"You mean Enigmar?"

Phoenix arched his eyebrows. "You have an impressive memory for faces."

"I tore his case file apart, and he looks too much like Trucy not to raise suspicion."

Phoenix stared at Miles for a moment. Miles looked at the bed briefly before looking back up.

"Phoenix. We have to tell Trucy what happened."

_Where's your shame  
You've left us up to our necks in it_

"…I know." Phoenix ran his fingers through his hair, sighed, stared at the ground. "I know. I can't. Not yet."

"Why not?"

Phoenix paused. He picked up his carton of Chinese food and resumed eating, staring off into the distance. Swallowed.

_Time may change me_

"I'll show you in a moment. Let me finish eating."

_But you can't trace time_

--

They watched the video footage Phoenix had taken of his conversation with Enigmar. The revelation of Trucy's perception powers as a Gramarye heritage, the supposed murder of Trucy's mother Thalassa Gramarye, Apollo Justice's confirmed inclusion in the Gramarye bloodline, his gold bangle, kinetic vision, Valant Gramarye's exclusion from the passage of Magnifi's secrets and his status as the actual murderer, Zak's false confession to clear his brother's name, the Gramarye family secrets signed off to Trucy.

When the video ended, Edgeworth closed his eyes, deep in thought. Phoenix had pushed the table back and slid onto the bed next to him, curled on his side, head resting on Miles' good shoulder.

"…wow, Phoenix," he finally said. "Wow."

"I know."

"Had you no footage of this, I would not have believed it had happened."

"It's something you taught me, remember? Always have proof that something was there, because you may never have the chance to prove it again."

Miles nodded, still digesting everything he had just been shown.

"This is why you targeted that boy, Justice, isn't it? You knew his powers would help you in court."

"Yup." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Though I'd had a suspicion ever since I saw his bracelet matched the ones in the picture Valant gave me of Trucy's mother. Thalassa."

"Where is Valant now?"

"No idea. I need to hunt him down and ask him more questions, though."

Phoenix yawned and draped his arm gently over Miles' abdomen, nestling into his shoulder. Miles hissed in pain, and Phoenix pulled back, mumbling an apology. He rested the weight of his head on the pillow and brushed his lips against Miles' cheek, nibbled lightly on his ear.

"Wright, I don't even need to tell you how not up for this I am."

Phoenix laughed quietly and kissed Miles on the cheek, under his stitches. "Oh, lighten up. I'm being thoroughly chaste." His hand lightly quested lower. "You're sure you couldn't use a little relaxation?"

"I am, as Trucy so elegantly put it, 'tripping balls' on morphine; I doubt even your prowess could re-direct blood where you want it to go right now. And a nurse could come in at any second."

Phoenix laughed and slid his hand back up Miles' chest to his opposite shoulder, holding him in a soft embrace. "All right, all right."

Miles smiled to himself and closed his eyes, drifting on the edge of sleep. Phoenix's breath was warm on his cheek, stubble brushing the crook of his neck, and he could feel the shadow of the pulse in his neck. His body was warm against his injured skin; as lovely as his presence was, he hoped to God Phoenix did not fall asleep and roll over onto his dislocated elbow.

He did not know how long he dozed in a semi-lucid state when Phoenix shifted and said "Miles?"

"Hm?"

"There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about."

Edgeworth opened his eyes warily and glanced sidelong at Phoenix. Phoenix stared back at him.

"It's nothing bad; I promise."

"Well, that's always good news."

"I've—well, I've wanted to talk to you about this for a long time. You're my best friend. Hell, you're one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. But I knew if I approached you with any half-formed ideas you'd tear them apart before I'd even begun. And, well, you've been an invaluable help with all of this investigating I've been doing. I mean, you're the only person in the world I'd trust with this. I couldn't have done all this alone."

_Strange fascination, fascinating me  
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through_

Miles closed his eyes and rested back against the pillows, smiling softly.

"Well, I will do my best to live up to your expectations."

"I want to re-instate the Jurist System."

It took Miles a moment to process what Phoenix had just said. Something about the idea crashed up against a wall in his drugged brain, struggled. He blinked and turned his body slightly.

It was then that the door slammed open and Trucy skipped into the room.

"Daddy! Papa Miles! We did it!"

She pulled off her top hat and shoved it under Miles' nose. It took him a moment to shift gears from realizing that Phoenix was absolutely fucking insane to realizing that the hat was brimful of roses. He blinked and stared blankly down his splinted nose at the flowers.

"Oh, that's so sweet! Thank you!"

Phoenix swept the hat out from under Miles' nose and set it on the bedside table. Trucy bustled over and pulled the flowers out of the hat, dropping them into the water pitcher by the bed (Miles made a vague noise of protest) and flipping the hat back onto her own head.

"I'm not done yet!"

It was a dangerous phrase. Miles' eye twitched nervously.

"I'm sorry Mr. Hat couldn't come to visit you. I have something even better."

The twitching got worse. _Oh hell._

Trucy twitched her elbow slightly, and a very shell-shocked, very confused Pess scrambled out from under her cape, a thick red bow around her neck. The top hat landed on her head. She bolted away from Trucy, shedding the hat in the process, and cowered under the bed.

"…Pess! No!" Trucy leaned down and clapped her hands. Pess whined in response. "Come back, girl!"

Edgeworth finally found his voice again.

"TRUCY!"

In another moment of trademark first-rate parenting, Phoenix was laughing. Miles wished his elbow wasn't in agony so he could elbow him. Hard.

_Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers_

"Are you ten?" he hissed. "You're encouraging her!"

_Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older_

"It's fine, Papa Miles! I took her for a walk before we came in, so she's good for a while." Trucy clapped and whistled slightly. "Pess-Pess, come here. Come here, girl."

Pess whined as though saying _'Oh hell no; get away from me, you psycho bitch.' _

"What did you _do_ to her, anyway?"

"Shh." Trucy held her finger up to her lips. "Gramarye family secret."

"You Gramarye family secreted my dog!"

"Miles, it's okay." Phoenix touched his arm. "Trucy would never hurt Pess."

"Not intentionally."

Phoenix finally lured out a very jumpy, but otherwise fine, Pess from under the bed with the rest of his lo mein, and yanked it out from under her nose at the last minute. She whined a little, then gave it up and tried to jump on the bed with Miles. She was so glad to see him it took everal firm commands of "NO!" and "DOWN!" before she settled with sitting by the side of the bed and nuzzling the back of Miles' hand, tail sweeping across the floor cheerfully. Despite the fact that his daughter had smuggled a dog into a hospital, and had probably traumatized her in the process, Miles was glad to see her. He smiled softly and kept his hand tangling over the side of the bed for her. Trucy had jumped on the end of his bed and was chattering with Phoenix happily, frequently hugging him tightly and commenting on how awesome they are to have pulled that off. She had scooped her top hat off the floor and plopped it on Miles' head, which had earned her an indignant look on Miles' part and a good deal of laughter from Phoenix. He mellowed under the compliments they both gave him, saying he looked like a gentleman, and he finally allowed himself to smile and returned to playing with Pess, listening to his family chatter behind him.

That was one of the concepts that still stunned him. _His_ family.

And he had to admit, in spite of his misgivings, that if Trucy could already manage to hide a dog that was half her size underneath her cape, she was going to make a fine heir to the Gramarye repertoire.

* * *

_I said that time may change me  
But I can't trace time_

* * *

_Author's Note: Clearly, lyrics are from "Changes" by David Bowie. If you did not know this, shame._

* * *


	8. Memory 07: Sympathy for the Devil

**Memory 07: Sympathy for the Devil**

_Central Prison  
Visitors' Waiting Room_

Phoenix wished the air conditioner wasn't turned up so high. He huddled into his hoodie and adjusted his cap lower over his ears, clasping an open book between his knees. The cover and pages he had already read flopped over his thigh.

"Stop fidgeting. You keep blasting me with static."

"It's cold in here," he muttered, seemingly to himself.

"You're going to draw attention to yourself."

Phoenix looked around the waiting room. He was utterly alone, save for a guard lounging behind his desk with his feet up and a laptop in his lap. Phoenix was almost positive he had seen a second of a porn website before the guard had minimized the window and straightened to allow him through security.

Passing through the metal detector was nerve-wracking. Ema had assured him that the camera wires coiled under the upfolded hem of his hat and the camera itself set behind the button she had given him so many years ago were amply shielded so long as he turned off the transmitter for that duration. He kept the hat pulled low over his ears as he passed through, hiding the bug in his right ear. He had taken to calling it the 'cricket', as the imagery from _Fahrenheit 451_ had rooted itself into his psyche. Every time Edgeworth spoke so far back into his ear it felt as though the voice was in his brain, whispering calm and rooted, logical things, anchoring him while submerged in a twilight world that was either void of logic, or taken so far in the direction of cold, imperical thought as to come full circle into the realm of madness.

Central Prison was one of the last places Phoenix had ever wanted to go. For all that it was only a state penitentiary, a long car ride north to the ass middle-of-nowhere Lancaster, there were more than enough lunatics here, many of whom Edgeworth or Phoenix had helped put away. He felt guilty, exposed, knowing lives had ended here in a stunningly barbaric and archaic fashion at the gallows, and that some of these convictions had been guided by his hand. When face-to-face with the fate of the condemned he felt the worm of doubt stir and gnaw at his gut, and he wondered if maybe, _maybe_, he had helped to send an innocent person to a hideous death.

The controversy surrounding lethal injection had come to a head while Phoenix was finishing law school. Following on the heels of the abolition of trial by jury in California—an agonizing, grueling road transferring the powers of the Sixth Amendment to state-level delegation worthy of its own bevy of scholarly tomes and studies— hanging had been reinstated as the method of execution in California. That had made absolutely no sense to Phoenix. Hanging was notoriously a hideous death, designed with the intent to inflict maximum torture to the victim before the body finally lost consciousness, but new, highly-contested studies some suspected were underwritten by government agents indicated that if performed properly the snapping of the neck would ensure that the condemned lost consciousness without pain. He recalled reading historical documentation of hangings in his History of Capital Punishment class in which the condemned 

would be strangled slowly and repeatedly lowered back to the ground when they started to lose consciousness to be revived, to be able to experience the agony of slow oxygen deprivation fully conscious. They would beg, spectators said, hardened criminals blubbering for mercy, screaming, screeching when they had the chance, those moments when their feet touched the ground. In their final spasms they voided their bowels, wet themselves, and hung limp and rotting in the wind with death-erections, putrid and bloated, defiled and shamed in their last days as a physical entity.

That was the cruelty inflicted in bygone days, thousands of years of human malice reduced to a single focal point, a rotting body twisting in the wind.

The modern procedure was clinical, a sterile pantomime of the noose's heritage. The condemned was weighted down with masses calculated to provide the proper force from freefall acceleration to snap the neck instantly, and the noose was fitted, adjusted to concentrate pressure at the second and third cervical vertebrae. The gallows were tall, ensuring acceleration to a force necessary to snap the neck, but not to decapitate the prisoner, as had happened in some unfortunate earlier experiments with the 'long drop' hanging execution method. The public was assured it was a clean death, painless and dignified. Phoenix's mouth curled upward ironically at the memory of a pedantic professor, a champion of the government's new system, trying to feed the class the party line with all the patience and conviction of a priest assuring his parishioners the worst atrocities imaginable to mankind are part of the greater good orchestrated by a loving God.

As part of a state policy that criminal law students should view an execution to fully understand the gravity with which they were entrusted, the law school arranged for all those concentrating in criminal law to make a trip to the Central Prison to witness an execution firsthand. It was a harrowing parody of a field trip. The students were filed onto a charter bus, shuttled out of LA into blinding California sunlight and desert, and filed into a sterile, white viewing room, glowing with harsh halogen light, in which a few rows of benches staggered stadium-style faced a large window onto the gallows. It was like all those old courtroom reality TV shows Phoenix's mother watched, except instead of a gurney with spread-eagled arms awaiting the condemned, a tall, stainless-steel gallows adorned the center of the execution floor. The tile floor had a large drain set into its center, efficient and sloped to easily wash away the fluids inherent in human demise should things not go according to plan. It was supposed to be a packaged deal with minimal clean-up, but as the professor pointed out with rueful good humor, things do not always go according to plan.

The man whose execution they were to view had no family, no next of kin to be horrified at the prospect of his last and most vulnerable moments being viewed by a gaggle of law students. His death was attended only by Phoenix's class, the press, and representatives of the California justice system. The man was lead out in handcuffs, blinded by the dark hood over his head, and was read his sentence. He stood, head bowed, shoulders tensed, as a chaplain in worn clothing read him his last rites, and asked him if he wanted one last chance to ask Jesus Christ to be his lord and savior. Though his sins may have been as scarlet, the blood of Jesus would wash him as clean as snow. The condemned man was silent. The preacher backed away and bowed his head, mouth moving rapidly in prayer for this lost soul, the only person in the entire room showing 

mercy and sympathy to this condemned man. The executioner asked the condemned if he had any last words. The man remained silent.

It was quick after that. The noose was lowered over his head, tugged securely so the knot would break his neck immediately, and his feet were strapped into sizable weights resting on the trap door. The last human to touch this man alive stepped off the platform, and there he stood, alone, head bowed, strapped to the masses that would drop him to his death.

He trembled.

There was a loud, mechanical snap, and Phoenix buried his head in his hands, realizing that he had been holding his breath in horror this entire time. Silence. He felt some of the students around him shift uncomfortably. He clutched his hair, twisting it around his fingers, and hissed. In his mind's eye he saw a beautiful, lithe figure, long legs dangling in the sunset, a shadow, a silhouette in a sundress with flowing red hair and eyes like glass twisting, twisting in the wind, rotting.

In death, all became equal.

He knew he had touched _that_ body—in retrospect he could see when he had been with Iris and when he had been with Dahlia—had felt the softness of her thighs beneath nervous, young hands, the smooth hollow of her stomach, the curves of her hips, even when she looked away from him in cold disgust, when she flipped her hair over her shoulder in distain before recomposing herself and giving him that sweet, hypnotic smile, edged with disgust he now realized she had felt for him all along. The realization that he had touched a woman repulsed by his attentions made him feel disgusting, ugly, lecherous, accentuated his clumsiness and angular, harry body next to her relative perfection. He thought tenderness and enthusiasm could compensate for his relative lack of skill at that point, but Dahlia had seen none of that.

_It was the first and only time he had sex with her._

_He had finished too soon. They had only been going for five minutes or so, and despite his best efforts he came, silent and fast, deep inside her. He collapsed back against the pillows, gasping, and noticed that she had stopped moving. The pressure of her hands on his chest lifted, and he opened his eyes to see her crossing her arms and glaring sidelong at the wall of his dorm room, displeased. He sat up and considered stroking her face, but the scowl stayed his hand._

"_Dollie, I'm sorry. I, uh…" He sat up and reached under her labia where they were connected, feeling through slickness for her clit. "Here …"_

_She smacked his hand away. He stared, wide-eyed with horror and shame curling in his stomach, as she lifted herself off him with a wet squelch and moved to sit on the end of the bed, fingers playing over her forearm, staring out the window with an incomprehensible expression. He coughed, still fighting that damned nasty cold he had gotten a few days ago, and pulled the full condom off his softening dick, tying it off and tossing it into the trash. He scooted to the end of the bed and touched her shoulder, covering his mouth with his other hand as he coughed._

"_Dollie…" Cough, cough. She had been so sticky-sweet and seductive despite his repeated protests that he did not want to get her sick, this embodiment of sweet and dirty all at the same time and damn it drove him insane— "I'm really sorry. It's, uh, been a while, actually since high school, and, uh…" He trailed his fingers over her arm, down over the curve of her breast, brushed her deep auburn hair over her shoulder, and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing up the back of her neck. "Let me take care of you."_

_His fingers trailed down her stomach, dipping low in promise of pleasure he wanted to give her, and his kisses against her shoulders got more heated, wetter, in parallel promise of the pleasures he could also provide with his mouth. _

_She shoved him off roughly and stood, pulling on her discarded thong and sundress as Phoenix stared in horror. He felt as though he was going to be sick. She smoothed out her hair, shoulders tense, and found her sandals. Picked up her parasol and purse. Started toward the door._

"_Dollie, please…"_

_It came out sounding more desperate than he had intended. She stopped, tensed, and turned around, smiling that radiant, sweet smile he had fallen in love with._

"_Sorry, Feenie, but I have a lot to take care of before class." _

_Phoenix's tongue was dry. She gave him a little wave and left, closing the door firmly behind her. He stared at his closed door, at the tattered and creased Zeppelin poster he had tacked there, and collapsed back onto the bed. The room still smelled of sex and Dahlia's perfume. He picked up a pillow and shoved it onto his face, coughing, hard._

_For the first time since they had met, she had not asked for him to return the necklace she had given him at the courthouse._

_He skipped class for the rest of the day._

_The next day, Doug Swallow was electrocuted._

The condemned man's body hung limply from the prison gallows. Minimal blood, no mess, clean and according to plan. Blood leaked from his ears. His death-erection pressed against his pants. He showed none of the signs of death from asphyxiation, which, the professor pointed out, meant he had not suffered. It was a clean, propaganda-worthy execution, and the professor seemed glad things had gone according to plan with his students in attendance. The doctor pronounced the convict dead, and he was unceremoniously cut down and removed from the room. The cadaver would go to a medical school.

In death, all became equal.

The image became juxtaposed with his image of Dahlia's body swinging in the sunset, and haunted his nightmares for years to come.

"_Our bodies break down, sometimes when we're ninety, sometimes before we're even born, but it always happens and there's never any dignity in it. I don't care if you can walk, see, wipe your own ass. It's always ugly - always! We can live with dignity - we can't die with it."_

It was something all criminal lawyers had to reconcile, or go mad. The same way doctors had to reconcile that some of their patients would die, whether of their own mistakes or not, it was possible that a lawyer's misplaced trust or convictions would help condemn the innocent. Each lawyer is ultimately a human, and in the long, morally-ambiguous twilight of their career they walk the razor's edge of truth and illusion, trust and skepticism, intuition and hard logic. It is a statistical inevitability a misstep will occur. But humans are flawed, and humans are the only maintainers the system has at the moment. Humans stand in judgment of other humans. And it's better than the alternatives, and so, they endure, for the sake of the net effect of good. But tell that to the people who were wronged.

This is the mantra Phoenix had inscribed in his consciousness; it was the only alternative to lobotomizing his empathy as so many criminal lawyers had done, or going mad.

"—nix. Phoenix."

Phoenix snapped out of his reverie, and the immediacy of being in the waiting room returned to him. The cricket in his ear was chirping. He rested his chin in his hands, staring off into space. The book was still clasped between his knees.

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?"

"Hmm."

He considered picking up the book just to show Edgeworth he was doing okay, but found it difficult to stir himself out of the rut of uneasy waiting into which he had entrenched himself. He wanted to click open his locket to look at the pictures of eight-year-old Trucy and nine-year-old Edgeworth—a comforting reminder of why he carried on in any tough situation—but he knew he would never live it down given that Edgeworth could see everything he saw at the moment. He stared at the opposite wall, sifting through fragmented memories linked by the strange, intuitive web of the mind, until a guard came to collect him and lead him to the solitary cell block. He marked his page and shoved the book into his hoodie pocket, adjusting the button on his cap until Edgeworth whispered that the focus was clear. Henceforth his conversation with Edgeworth was going to be one-sided.

The guard was far too chatty for Phoenix's comfort. She was surprised that _he_—no offence; she didn't mean anything by it—was close enough with Prosecutor Edgeworth to have him demand a visit with Mr. Gavin, and it was such a shame such a nice man as Mr. Gavin was in jail, as he 

was _so_ nice and _such_ a gentleman and remembered her husband's and kids' names and always asked after her and her family with the utmost courtesy. She unlocked the door to Solitary Cell 13 and bowed Phoenix through, reminding him that she would be waiting whenever he was done, and closed the door behind him. Now he was in the lion's den.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the poor light. The only source was from a barred window hewn high into the brick wall, but aside from the lack of illumination, the solitary cell was damn near palatial. Kristoph Gavin was lounging in a plush, purple chair centered in the window's light, reading a handsome leather-bound book. The desk near the door had a glass vase with red roses and a glass bottle shaped like a fine, feminine hand, fingers splayed as though showing off the nails. The wood bookshelf against the back wall was filled with hardbound books stamped with gold gilt, the sort of books that smacked of 'collector's edition' or being as much a decorative statement as a show of intellectual prowess or good breeding. He wondered if Gavin could play that violin propped up against some of the books.

"Well, well, isn't this an unexpected surprise?"

_Please allow me to introduce myself  
I'm a man of wealth and taste  
I've been around for a long, long years  
Stole many a man's soul and faith_

Kristoph finally closed his book with a contented sigh and set it behind him on the chair as he stood, smiling with poison saccharine. He looked as immaculate as ever in a tailored, pressed suit, hair carefully styled and swept out of his face.

"What errand brings you down to my cramped confines?

"Congratulations, Wright," Edgeworth murmured dryly in his ear. "You officially look more unkempt than a convict."

"Gavin…"

"Is… this your idea of revenge, Phoenix Wright? Revenge for the events that took away your attorney's badge seven years ago?"

_And I was 'round when Jesus Christ  
Had his moment of doubt and pain  
Made damn sure that Pilate  
Washed his hands and sealed his fate_

"My past is like my logic, straight and true. Nothing's changed." He smirked. "All I did was point the finger of justice in the right direction."

Miles groaned into his ear. Gavin narrowed his eyes, the implication of what Phoenix had said clearly not lost on him, and pushed his glasses up his eyes in a vague attempt to hide his wounded pride.

_Pleased to meet you  
Hope you guess my name_

"…fine." He smiled cuttingly. "I'm glad we could have this little tête-à-tête, Wright." He looked Phoenix up and down slowly, eyes unfathomable, and pushed his glasses up his nose. Finally, he exhaled quietly.

_But what's puzzling you  
Is the nature of my game_

"You look well, Phoenix Wright."

"You too… Gavin."

* * *

"_Because you're an evil human being", huh, Gavin. Bullshit._

Edgeworth was stretched out in the front seat of his car with his laptop on his thighs and his cane propped beside him, seat scooted back as far as it could go and air conditioner running with the car plugged into the electrical port just outside the prison. The sun was setting right into his eyes, and he pulled the visor down over his seat. Phoenix had finished his interview with Gavin, and the camera on his hat was filming a walk through the prison's hallways toward the front door. Edgeworth sighed and saved another copy of the entire movie onto his hard drive, saved another copy onto his flash drive, and was burning a hard copy onto a disc when Phoenix exited the prison's front doors with his hands shoved in his hoodie pockets, head bowed in thought. Edgeworth unlocked the car doors and moved his briefcase into the back seat as Phoenix opened the passenger door and sat down, slamming the door behind him. He pulled his cap off and ran his fingers through his hair.

"We have to get ahold of that letter."

"Well, at least you got some nail polish."

Phoenix pulled the hand-shaped bottle of Ariadoney out of his pocket and turned it over in his hands, brows furrowed.

"Is it still called 'nail polish' when it's clear?"

"Probably. Why?"

"I thought you would know. It kind of goes with the foppish territory."

Edgeworth shook his head and rolled his eyes as he closed his laptop and slid it back into his briefcase.

"Right, didn't see that coming."

"I know I've seen this somewhere before."

"It wasn't in the grocery store?"

"I don't shop for cosmetics."

"Trucy hasn't dragged you back there?"

"A few times. I honestly wasn't paying attention."

"Hm."

Edgeworth slid out of the car to unplug it, still slightly hobbling on his good leg, and when he got back in, Phoenix had slid the nail polish back into his pocket and was turning his magatama over in his hands. Edgeworth started the car and switched into reverse, looking over his shoulder as he pulled out of the parking space, and shifted into gear to begin the slow crawl out of the prison grounds.

Phoenix was silent a good portion of the drive back to LA. He had curled up in the passenger seat like a teenager and was staring out the window at the passing desert. The shadows grew long in the setting sun, and cars began to turn their headlights on. They finally turned back onto the 134 and gridlocked in traffic as the sun sank below the horizon.

The silence did not bother Edgeworth. They were well beyond the stage of being bothered by extended silences, and he gave Phoenix the space he needed, interrupting only to ask if he minded if he turned on the radio, to which Phoenix mumbled consent. They were through the Bach section of Miles' mp3 player and beginning the recordings of Beethoven when Phoenix shifted, and Miles felt his attention shift from his inner world back to the present. He turned around and sat up.

"So, Gavin had five black psyche-locks around his motive for murdering Enigmar."

Miles tapped his finger on the steering wheel.

"…really. Black."

"Yeah."

"You've never seen that before?"

"Never."

"And you've interviewed quite a few nasty people with your magatama, haven't you."

"Yup."

Miles glanced over at Phoenix. He was staring straight out the windshield, brows furrowed in thought.

"Do you have any idea why?"

"It's difficult to explain." Phoenix ran his fingers through his hair again and dropped his hand. "…it felt so _dark_ and _cold_. I mean, even moreso than other times I've tried to pry into people's darkest secrets. I really can't explain it." He paused. "It's almost like the manifestation of the most primordial source of human cruelty. You know, like the devil in everybody."

_I stuck around St. Petersburg  
When I saw it was a time for a change  
Killed the czar and his ministers  
Anastasia screamed in vain_

"Spoken like a true Judeo-Christian Westerner."

"You know what I mean."

"I do, as did every human culture in existence. Can you break them?"

"…I don't know." He paused for a moment. "I had the feeling that if I tried, the energy they released when they broke could be deadly. It was like my soul was in danger of being ripped from my body. Like, that would be the price I'd have to pay to shatter those."

"Well, we certainly don't want that."

Phoenix turned and glared, eyes hard. Edgeworth sighed.

"Phoenix, you know I don't take much stock in the supernatural, but I've used the magatama before. I know by whatever mechanism, it works. And I trust you know what you're talking about." He paused and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Don't risk it."

His voice had come out quieter than he expected.

_I rode a tank  
Held a general's rank  
When the Blitzkrieg raged  
And the bodies stank_

"I wonder if everybody has the capacity to harbor so much hate for so long. I mean, I've seen people hold grudges and hate in their hearts, and it's rotted them from the inside out, but this—this is insane."

Miles' grip on the steering wheel tightened.

_He reminded him constantly that the values of the world were at odds with the values of perfection. The voice was punctuated with sharp, bloody lashes of the switch whenever Miles showed emotion or screwed something up. The voice that lashed him from without seeped in through his myriad wounds, and instilled itself in his consciousness. _

_The voice was small, still, and at utter odds with his gut and heart, but powerful. It was ancient, timeless, the voice of a legacy of self-destruction permeating mankind. It told him that he did not need people, that emotion would only cloud his judgment. It rendered him an incomplete human being by severing his mind from the rest of his consciousness, and eliminating the emergent, complex, intuitive consciousness inherent in well-balanced people. The isolation from others left him with nothing but his own mind and memories, churning, churning. It prevented him from re-gaining perspective. It encouraged him to shield his heart from the sunshine of the world, to allow it to atrophy and rot. His intellect became unparalleled, but his heart and his intuition lay dormant, and his potential to improve with those limitations intact hit its limit. He sensed that. _

_The voice called it 'despair'. The voice suddenly made him acutely aware of the dearth of his heart, and made him think it was dead. The voice told him to choose physical death. The voice told him there was no other way out. The voice told him death was what he deserved._

_Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chose death, and the devil that flowed to him through Manfred von Karma and through every human atrocity and cruelty ever committed laughed as he left his mark on the brow of humanity. Nothing ever changed. And that mark was as old as human consciousness. That perpetuation of that mark had been insured the moment the first human was able to say "I am", and was in that self-realization forced from Eden._

"I didn't have the magatama when I was dealing with Dahlia or von Karma," said Phoenix. "It kind of makes me wonder…"

Miles smiled sardonically to himself. His knuckles were white.

_Pleased to meet you  
Hope you guess my name_

"You'd be surprised."

_Ah, what's puzzling you  
Is the nature of my game_

* * *

"We've got it."

Edgeworth slapped a paper down onto the kitchen table, smirking triumphantly. Phoenix looked up from the meticulous notes he was taking on constitutional law and rubbed his eyes, then picked it up and scanned it.

"The referendum to try the reformed Jurist System in a real trial is going to be presented in state legislature next week. Constitutional lawyers who objected to the abolition of the Sixth Amendment are lining up and salivating over this. We've got all the help we could ever hope to have." Edgeworth sat down, seeming more jubilant that Phoenix had seen him in ages. "This is our best shot. We couldn't have been dealt a better hand."

"It's going to the state legislature _next week_?"

"It's being ushered in as top priority."

"But, I'm not—" Phoenix looked at his scattered notes despairingly. "—I'm not ready to present this."

"You're not, and even _I_ don't think even you could manage to wing it in front of politicians. I've got several lawyers from the DA's office who were happy to collect colleagues who could speak elegantly on our behalf. Politicians don't want to hear logic. They want to hear a pitch they can spin to their constituents. It will be almost sinfully easy. Placing the power back in the hands of the people and out of the hands of judges with government interests, play up some paranoid sensibilities and conspiracy theories—the legislators are not idiots. They know they can look like champions of the people reclaiming power on their behalf. Any counterarguments to the effect that the people are idiots who cannot be trusted to make deductive decisions will be met with howls of rage from the public. No legislator can risk taking that stance. Besides, this is California, for Christ's sake."

"It was abolished once."

"Under the sovereign powers enacted under the Second Patriot Act. As far as many people are concerned—and many of them are now on our side—the abolition of the Sixth Amendment was illegal, and the right to a trial by jury still stands. The American public gave silent consent to this abuse of power. They're as much to blame as politicians. They let blind fear and hysteria stay their hands. But that doesn't make it right that this has gone on for so long."

_I watched with glee  
While your kings and queens  
Fought for ten decades  
For the Gods they made_

It was a speech Phoenix had heard many times before. In 2011, when he was just a freshman in college, Islamic militants bombed the U.S. Capitol Building and brought about a refreshed wave of vehement nationalism and fear just as post-9/11 paranoia was finally starting to clear the 

country's system. That day was vivid in his memory; though for the most part Ivy University students handled the crisis very well, the television showed nonstop footage of the carnage and resulting violent backlash against Muslims around the country. He was only nine years old on September 11, 2001; he had not been able to appreciate the secondary, more subtle horror unfolding on television that entire day, beneath the clouds of smoke and bloodied bodies. His mom had kept him home from school that day, as much as he wanted to talk to Miles and Larry about what had happened, and the television in the living room stayed on CNN. She sat upright on their couch fingering her rosary nervously, intermittently praying quietly in Spanish and bowing her head. Phoenix asked her cautiously why she was crying.

"When things like this happen, it is us immigrants that get blamed."

That did not make any sense. Mama was Mexican, and he was born in America; the news said that the people who attacked the World Trade Center were Muslim. Mama smiled sadly when he pointed that out and said that he would see soon enough what she meant.

That conversation was vivid in his mind as he watched the same hysteria envelop the country ten years later. But now he was old enough to see the far-reaching implications. He knew now that people who were afraid would consent to the revocation of rights in the guise of increased safety. They had proven that before. They would prove it again. They did prove it again.

_I shouted out  
"Who killed the Kennedys?"  
When after all  
It was you and me_

Conservative politicians rallied in a collective stance that amounted to "I told you so", mostly in response to allowing the original Patriot Act to expire. "If only we had maintained due vigilance, this never would have happened," they bleated, again, again, to the footage of bodies being dug from the wreckage. It was a refrain of the months after September 11, additionally punctuated by the fact that this was a repeat, no longer seeming an anomaly. Opponents were said to value privacy for selfish reasons over the safety of the American people, and, as they were frequently asked, if they were doing nothing wrong, why had they anything to fear from surveillance? Conservatives called liberals paranoid, liberals called conservatives paranoid, and either side remained convinced the paranoia and baseless fear of the other side would contribute to the downfall of America and Democracy and Freedom.

Fifteen years later, of course, nothing had changed.

"But how are they going to account for all the people tried since the Court Reformation? Or executed?"

"Nobody said it would be neat and easy. This still needs to be done."

"I can't believe _you're_ placing trust in the average citizen to judge a court case."

Miles smirked.

"_What the hell foolish reformation are you trying to instigate, Miles Edgeworth?"_

_Edgeworth sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Not for the first time, he dearly wished Franziska was not nearly as connected as she was. _

"_Franziska…"_

"_I honestly thought the foolish backwards American legal system was progressing with the abolition of the antiquated, foolish jury system, but instead of furthering progress and abolishing capital punishment you foolishly deem it a good idea to regress back to a system that relies on the wisdom and insight of easily-manipulated, blue-collar fools."_

"_We have to reverse this trend before it gets worse."_

"_The slippery slope argument? Really, Miles Edgeworth, I would have expected you to have an argument of better quality than that."_

"You're not the only one."

* * *

They worked feverishly through the next month. To surprisingly little fanfare their proposal was approved by the state legislature, and the Los Angeles County District Court was designated the trial's location. The exhaustive logistics for setting up a jury trial system distracted Phoenix from his case against Gavin; he could work on securing his innocence once the jury system was underway. He quit playing poker to focus full-time on the jury system, as much as it hurt his pride to rely on Miles financially even if only for a short while.

Miles' recovery continued; the physical therapist finally cleared him to walk without a cane some weeks after he had gone back to work, though he would have a slight limp the rest of his life, and the scars across his body faded to white. His joints ached when rain approached, and seeing him stop writing to wince and rub at his wrists and dislocated elbow, or wince slightly as he walked, on overcast days cut through Phoenix like a knife. Both he and Trucy had taken to making Miles more pots of tea than he knew what to do with on those days, until he told them both that they just burned and over-or-under-seeped the tea every damn time, which was a considerable talent, and to waste their efforts elsewhere. So he started getting more warm washcloths and ice packs along with massages and dogs hanging all over his knee giving him the puppy eyes. No matter how much he sputtered, it was painfully obvious to both Wrights that he was touched. For some reason Trucy was convinced that the reverse-color PaPa hat she had made for Miles would make him feel better if he would just _wear_ it, for all his excuses that hats drove him insane and messed up his hair and just made his head feel hot. He still could not bring himself to wake up and take it off when he was roused out of a drugged doze by Trucy jamming it firmly over his head. He knew she and Phoenix got some strange kick out of seeing him wear it, and wearing it in sleep allowed him to preserve his protests and their feelings when he was awake.

The first time after the accident Phoenix saw Miles naked Miles was horridly self-conscious, which he, as per usual, hid poorly with curt gruffness and cynical faux-indifference. Of course Miles was still beautiful as he ever had been, but the scars knotted guilt in Phoenix's gut, and served as a constant reminder for every reason his revenge against Kristoph Gavin was not complete. He mapped every scar with his fingertips and his lips, slowly, lingeringly, savoring every pulse and barely-audible moan and every indescribable awareness that Miles was _alive_. He integrated the new imperfections into his mental map of his lover's body. He kissed slowly, repeatedly, every shattered bone with the vague hope that he could direct love and tenderness into their healing. He knew all of it was a painfully cliché gesture, and despite Miles' dry comment to that effect it was obvious that it melted him nonetheless. Phoenix kissed his hideously-scarred palms and fingertips that had lost so much sensation, and Miles said that he wished he could feel that as vividly as he had before. It was then that he teared up for the first time since the accident, and as much as Phoenix hated to see Miles upset it was a relief to see him get it all out. He so seldom indulged in that release. Of course, it was not long before Phoenix started crying too and apologizing profusely about what had happened, and they had an intensely manly night of cuddling, nuzzling, and kissing, though Miles said dryly that even if he were up to fucking like men—which he wasn't, so don't get any ideas—he would rather stay like this. Phoenix chalked that up to the painkillers, and Miles whacked him in the face with a pillow when he said that he was starting to like the doped-up, uninhibited Miles better than his sober evil twin.

Miles _had_ been well enough for sex for a couple of months now, and Phoenix had quickly learned how to avoid jarring or hurting his body, had quickly learned his limits and how to sense when they had expanded and where to stop by listening to the catches in Miles' breath and the sudden clenching of hands around his wrists. For all that Miles was still sore he was insatiable, and he had admitted to Phoenix that in some ways his close call had reignited in him a lust to live each day to the fullest, which when they had the time and privacy meant wearing themselves out in every way they could think of that would not make Miles yelp in pain. In one early encounter Phoenix had overbalanced and smashed Miles' dislocated elbow, which had made the latter man howl in agony and curl up in a ball as spasms shot up his arm for quite a while after. Phoenix, of course, felt like an absolute monster and cradled Miles and apologized profusely on the brink of tears until Miles was the one comforting _him_. It was going to be intensely vanilla for a while, which was perfectly fine with both parties. They had a mutually-beneficial agreement that while experimentation was fun, just being able to make love to one another in some way or another was more than enough. Whether he was giving or receiving Miles was invariably lying or sitting on the bed, as balancing for any protracted time on his wrists or elbows was still extremely painful. By virtue this meant Phoenix was doing most of the work, but he usually had more than enough enthusiasm for the both of them anyway, and he had a working tally of all the times Miles would owe him the fucking of his life once he was fully healed.

It was originally quite difficult to convince the court to give the chair of the Jurist System Simulated Court Committee to a disbarred attorney of some notoriety, but they consented under the condition that Miles Edgeworth oversee the operation. All executions were put on hold until the establishment of the new court system, which gave Phoenix more time to investigate Gavin once this job was done. There was no rush.

He was going to leave it on the backburner. That was his full intention.

He did not anticipate that Drew Misham would die of atroquinine poisoning in the beginning of October.

* * *

_October 7, 2026, 12:30 PM  
District Attorney's Office  
Miles Edgeworth's Office_

"Miles! We have a trial!"

Edgeworth looked up from his paperwork and arched his eyebrows. Phoenix had bolted to the district attorney's office as fast as his scrap-heap of a bike could carry him, and he was still panting slightly from running through the entrance and up the stairs. At least Edgeworth's office was only on the second floor; he utterly refused to place himself in a position where elevators would become necessary. He had managed to maintain his nonchalant, confident persona in front of Apollo and Trucy, as much for his own benefit as theirs, but now that he was out of their presence the panicked realization that the damn trial was tomorrow and he was not ready had smacked him. Hard.

"We have to put that multimedia presentation together. Now."

Edgeworth sighed and checked his watch. "Why? Can it wait until tomorrow?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Drew Misham died last night. Atroquinine poisoning."

Phoenix slapped down the copy of the autopsy report Ema Skye had been kind enough to email him—thoroughly against her superior's orders, of course. Edgeworth pushed his glasses up his nose and picked it up, looked it over. He looked up at Phoenix. Stared for a moment.

"No."

"His daughter, Vera, is being tried tomorrow as the murderer. There are no other suspects."

"_No_, Phoenix."

"It's too late." Phoenix slapped another paper down on the desk, which Edgeworth snatched. "I've already assigned Justice to the case. They're investigating as we speak."

"…you idiot."

"…what?"

Miles waved the declaration that the Jury System trial would be given during _State v. Misham_. "This! You idiot! Do you know what you've done?"

"…I… no?"

"We can't try Gavin in the first Jury System trial. There's too much vested interest, and _everybody knows it_. Our opponents will have our necks on this. Unbiased circumstances, my _arse_!"

"It's not like this was my idea."

"Oh, it wasn't? You're sure you didn't persuade the judge to agree to this?"

"Well… I may have suggested it. Lightly. In passing."

Miles slammed the paper down on his desk. A pencil rattled onto the floor.

"It's the best example I can think of," Phoenix said quietly. "Miles, you know the evidence as well as I do. The case fits the criteria for the trial run of the Jurist System perfectly—"

"Was this really your plan all along? To nail Gavin?" Miles stood up and gestured wildly at Phoenix. It had been a long time since he had seen Miles this worked up. "_God_, Phoenix, we've already got him for one murder. Why do we have to do this? Would you really risk everything we've worked for just to get your revenge on that bastard? Are you that small a person?"

Phoenix clenched his fists by his sides.

"No."

"No, you're right, of course. You wouldn't think that far ahead." Miles crossed his arms and started pacing angrily. "You just jump into situations where you think you have a chance in hell without considering the far-reaching consequences of your actions. Politics will not smile favorably upon your courtroom theatrics."

"I never said I wanted to be a politician."

"Well, like it or not, you've become one for now."

"Well, _like it or not_, as Jurist System Simulated Court Committee chair I recognize that this case has the perfect setup to emphasize the power and necessity of a trial by jury, _and_ this is the last chance I have to nail Gavin and clear my name, _and_ I'm going to take it." He crossed his arms and smirked, triumphantly. "It's too late to turn back now, anyway. The paperwork's already been filed. The judge agrees this is a good case for this."

"Yes. What a convenient excuse. It is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission, isn't it, Wright?"

"I accept full responsibility for this trial. I promise I can make sure he's found guilty for his crimes, and I can get that poor girl off the hook." He paused. "Miles, you know he's dangerous. He tried to kill you. God, he almost succeeded. He's trying to send a blameless girl to the gallows for murdering her own father. He deprived Trucy of her real father. I have more than enough reason to want to rip his throat out. Don't you see how much self-control it's taken to wait this long?"

"I assure you that I lack no faith in your abilities. That isn't what I'm afraid of."

Phoenix waited for Miles to continue. Miles turned around and sighed heavily, arms still crossed.

"Do you want everybody to think that you set up this entire system just for your own revenge? And there's a lot more than just your reputation at stake. This—everything we've worked for—could be set ablaze. Thrown into an unfavorable light. Be portrayed as an abuse of power."

"You know that was never my intention."

"I know that. Who else does?" He paused. "And while you may only content yourself with the approval of those close to you—an admirable trait, to be sure—there's more at stake right now than just your reputation."

Phoenix was silent for a long time. Miles sighed and stepped behind him—still favoring his right leg, as Dr. Mask said he probably always would—and clasped his shoulders. Miles was actually two centimeters taller than Phoenix, and the height difference was even more pronounced when he was in dress shoes and Phoenix in sandals, but the way he stood now with his right leg slightly bent to take the weight off his left leg lowered him to Phoenix's height. It was minute; Phoenix only noticed because he was looking for it and was so intimately related with every aspect of Miles' physiology, including his usual impeccable posture, and the manifestation of even the slightest trace of the injury felt like a punch to the face.

"Phoenix…"

"…please, Miles," he finally said. "We have the evidence. You've seen it. I know I can pull this off. I know I'll be able to emphasize the importance of this system and everything we've fought for. This trial is perfect for that, and you know it damn well, my biases and involvement aside." He sighed and paused, shoving his hands into his pockets. "It would be unprofessional to allow my qualms about my own reputation to make me shy away from this. Please. Trust me. I can turn this around."

* * *

They were up all night frantically weaving the collected video footage and the evidence Trucy leaked from Apollo's evidence file of the day's investigation into a semi-interactive multimedia 

presentation. After several cans of energy drinks and a nerve-wracking computer crash from which their presentation was salvaged, some awkward fiddling with the web camera and an argument about what to call the whole damn thing (Edgeworth refused to call it GLaDOS, and Phoenix had shot back that maybe they should call it something pretentious like "MASON System"—which is exactly what it remained), they stumbled into the courthouse one hour before the trial was set to begin and jammed the disc into the multimedia system. They clambered up the stairs and slid into a dark balcony overlooking all of the juror's separate rooms through one-way glass ceilings, a strange parody of the Panopticon.

"Oh Jesus Christ," Phoenix groaned. It was painful to watch himself talk against that idiotic pseudo-technological green-screen background they had settled upon as the lesser of all evils last night. He kept the same smug, aloof expression the entire time, which was mostly a sarcastic response to Edgeworth's order to 'look more professional'—it was the ironic, deadpan demeanor he adopted in situations he found absurd—but in a twisted sort of retort Edgeworth kept those takes. And the monologue was this painfully-vapid drivel Phoenix had written on scrap paper at six in the morning after they had realized all of a sudden the entire presentation needed some form of narration. It reminded him painfully of being back in law school and having to pretend to take his own half-ironic pretentious bullshit seriously. In front of an audience.

There was still something more painful about having to face himself played-back over a six screens and a speaker system. He buried his head in Edgeworth's shoulder.

"This is painful."

"Oh, for God's sake," Edgeworth grumbled. For all that he was exhausted, Phoenix had to admit Miles looked amazingly good unkempt like this. He had fair stubble on his chin, his hair was awry and falling flat, and he was wearing the same white shirt and black vest from last night with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open. "Couldn't you have at least put on a suit to make this video?"

"I'm supposed to look like I'm speaking for the common people, as the common people."

"You can still represent the 'common people' and not look like a hobo!"

Phoenix smirked and rubbed his stubbly chin against Edgeworth's neck. "You know you love it."

"Egh. You didn't brush your teeth this morning, did you?"

"No. Why? Does my breath smell bad?"

"Yes it does—WRIGHT." Edgeworth batted Phoenix away as he breathed directly into his nose, lifting his weight off one hip to pull something out of his pocket. "Geh. If you insist on hanging all over me, at least take one of these."

He pressed a small plastic tab of breath-freshener strips into Phoenix's palm. Phoenix laughed and slid one out with his thumb, then pressed it onto his tongue and waggled it in Edgeworth's face. He rolled his eyes and shoved Phoenix's face away with a splayed hand.

"Hey." Phoenix caught his wrist and forced his hand down by his side. "You should talk. You haven't shaved in a while either. It actually looks pretty good."

"Unlike you, I do not _insist_ upon stubble as some sort of badge of rebellion against the establishment. That probably helps the overall appeal."

"It's very virile."

"Thank you."

They stared at each other for a moment, Phoenix still pinning Miles' wrist down next to him on the bench. He grinned impishly and pulled Miles into him, leveraging himself back against the carpeted wall, and kissed him, hard, clumsily cramming his tongue into his mouth. Miles pushed him back slightly and renewed the kiss more softly, dallying, lapping at his lips. They were giddy with exhaustion and the high of imminent victory, and, in Phoenix's case, strung out on God-knows-how many energy drinks. He finally overbalanced, perched sideways on the narrow bench bolted along the semi-circular wall, and dragged Miles to the ground on top of him. He cracked the back of the head and yelped in pain, vividly reminded there was concrete beneath the thin carpet. Miles smirked and shook his head, and cradled the back of Phoenix's head.

"You're an idiot."

"And you love it."

Phoenix closed his eyes and allowed the throbbing to subside, resting his head back against Edgeworth's hand as the latter pulled off his hat and threw it onto the bench, then ran his fingers through his hair, kneading the scalp over the rising bump.

"You need to wash your hair."

Phoenix did not bother to open his eyes, though he was melting under the ministrations. "I washed it less than two days ago."

"Your hair is so insanely thick that's too long."

"Is it really _that bad_?"

"No, but it's so nice when it's clean."

Phoenix smiled, leaning further into Edgeworth's hand.

"Well, when we're old and senile maybe I'll still have hair."

"The Edgeworths gray early, but we do not go _bald_, thank you very much."

"You had gray hair in fourth grade."

"It was _brown_, thank you very much."

"It was _gray_."

Edgeworth twisted Phoenix's hair around his knuckles, hard. Phoenix hissed in pain and pulled away a little.

"I didn't say it was bad! It was actually quite endearing!"

Edgeworth loosened his grip. "Uh-huh."

"Fine." Phoenix opened his eyes, smiling crookedly. "I'll tell you what. We'll sit through this, however the hell long it takes, go home, take a nice, long, _hot_ shower… and sleep for the next twelve hours. How does that sound?"

Edgeworth groaned and collapsed on top of Phoenix, fingers still tangled loosely in his hair.

"That sounds orgasmic."

"I don't have the energy for that."

"Well, that's a first."

Phoenix snorted softly and threaded his hand through Edgeworth's hair, now just long enough to tie back in a tail (with a lavender ribbon, as though Edgeworth were not already foppish enough), and undid the ribbon, something he was getting more adept at doing with one hand. He pulled off the hair-tie beneath and smoothed his fingers through his hair, and Miles purred low in his throat, felt more than heard, pulled off his glasses, and shifted so that his head rested in the crook of Phoenix's neck.

They drifted in and out of a semi-conscious sleep like that for what felt like hours, but was only moments—somehow his mind dropped far enough out of consciousness for time to collapse in on itself. Though the floor was hard it was strangely comfortable, even with Edgeworth's heavy weight resting on him; something in the way he lay helped to stretch out his spine and align his back. It was a strange, paradoxical blessing that something so comfortable and rewarding would seem to last longer than it actually was, and not the other way around.

They were rudely awakened during the trial recess when a runner was sent to ask them how they were doing and if the trial was proceeding satisfactorily from their vantage point. Miles was fairly disgruntled at being found sleeping on a courthouse floor with his lover, by a college intern 

no less, but Phoenix laughed it off and asked the runner if they could have some coffee. A lot of it, actually. The whole pot would be nice.

It was inevitable when the trial proceeded that it would come to this. Phoenix and Miles knew full well Vera Misham's connection to the old _State v. Gramarye_ case, so when Klavier Gavin finally made the connection and utterly lost his composure, it did not shock them in the least. Through it all Vera stared intently, almost hypnotized, at him, as she had been the whole trial, though now she looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack. She kept chewing at her thumbnail and looking down when Klavier demanded that she answer him.

"Objection!"

Apollo slammed his hands onto his desk. "Prosecutor Gavin! The defendant is answering all of your questions! Stop badgering her!"

Klavier paused for a long time, staring hard at Apollo, disheveled and with his back to the wall—literally. He had a custom of banging the wall with his fist when he was cornered, and now it looked like the only thing holding him up. Sweat was beading on his brow.

"He's told you nothing, has he? Your soiled, sullied mentor. _Nothing_?"

Phoenix felt a sickening knot tighten in his stomach. He knew damn well what was coming. He had gotten used to it in the past seven years and had gotten damn good at hiding behind an indifferent mask. None of that stopped the nausea he felt every time somebody cut deeper.

"Sullied…" Apollo looked genuinely confused. "…who?"

"Phoenix Wright! Who else?"

That name. His name, being spit like an insult, like something distasteful, sliced through his gut. He stared at the screen, back straight, though he knew full well nobody but Edgeworth could see him right now.

He would never again hide in shame. No matter how much it hurt.

"…Daddy?"

Trucy's voice cut through his heart. It was not venomous, but had a pain all its own, sharper and cleaner. His hand shook around his Styrofoam coffee cup.

"He never told you about the trial, seven years ago? About how he came to lose his attorney's badge?"

Apollo stayed silent.

"It was a certain piece of evidence that decided his fate, you know. A certain diary. On the back, it bore the mark of a silk hat."

He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable outburst from Apollo, which was not long in coming. He did not realize he was shaking so badly until coffee sloshed from the cup and scalded the back of his hand.

The familiar smash of hands on a desk.

Edgeworth's fingers interlaced with his free hand and gripped, hard.

"Vera! You must tell us! The evidence you made was used in a trial seven years ago. Who asked 'Drew Misham', you, to forge that evidence?"

Phoenix squeezed back.

"…For all of our sakes, who was it?"

Vera gnawed on her thumbnail. She could not tear her gaze from Klavier. She stared at him as though he were a ghost.

"…we… met only once."

Her voice was barely a whisper, but the courtroom was so silent it carried to the microphones. Apollo stared, even more intent.

"You… you met the client? Well, who was it?"

Vera kept staring at the demon she saw in Klavier. The color was progressively draining from her face.

"…it was…" she whispered, barely audible. "…it was…"

Trucy leaned over to whisper something to Apollo. Klavier looked like absolute hell.

"Yes, what? Is there something about me?"

She chewed. Her hand was staring to shake.

"…I remember clearly… I remember who gave me the book… the diary…"

She paused. Apollo barked, "Who was it?"

Vera stared at him for a moment, and suddenly made an anguished, strangled noise. She clutched at her throat. Her face was chalk-white.

Whatever demon was chasing her in Klavier's guise finally caught her, and her pupils contracted in terror.

"Ve…Vera!"

The whisper should not have been audible. Somehow, Phoenix was certain of what she said as she crashed to the ground.

"The… De… vil…"

* * *

The report from the hospital was bleak. Vera was suffering from atroquinine poisoning, of which there were no known survivors to date, yet was somehow still holding onto life in the ICU. The doctors were doing everything they could. Nobody had any idea how she had gotten the poison—it was relatively fast-acting, with a fifteen-minute kill time, and she had been under the direct custody of the court the entire morning. She had even been on the witness stand, in plain sight of God and country, longer than the toxicology would permit her to have been poisoned before taking the stand.

Atroquinine was an oral poison. Though it had a vanishingly low lethal dose at 0.002 mg for an adult human, not a drop of liquid, nor a crumb of food, had touched her lips the entire time, not even court-provided water.

After receiving the report on Vera's status, Phoenix rushed to the green-screen camera setup along the curved balcony he and Edgeworth had inhabited and managed a rather smooth segue from Vera's collapse to the footage of the trial from seven years ago and the investigations involved therein. He was shocked at how smoothly and confidently he managed to sound; he wondered if anybody watching was fooled into thinking that he had everything planned out—even this recent catasterfuck. Ten years ago he would have been transparently rattled. Once they had set the tapes to air the rest of the footage they had compiled so far—hell, they had the jurists until 5 PM, and they might as well make use of their time as the trial was suspended for the duration of the day—they rushed into the courtroom lobby where Phoenix met with Apollo and Trucy while Edgeworth collapsed onto one of the benches and rested his head back against the wall.

"This is insane," Edgeworth mumbled when Phoenix collapsed onto the bench beside him.

"No shit?"

"Nothing but her own nails touched her lips the entire time. This doesn't make sense—"

They both stopped cold and stared at each other. Their eyes widened in mutual realization.

"Miles, you're brilliant."

Phoenix kissed Miles—hard and fast, just on the lips—to an annoying catcall from across the lobby that sounded suspiciously like Trucy, and stood up, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"We have to go to Drew Studio and the Prison. Now."

"…now?"

"That yellow envelope." Phoenix started pacing. "Bushel was sure he saw it. I know it's the one that was in Gavin's cell. I _know_ it. We have to get it." He paused for a moment. "Yeah. I'd bet anything Bushel's at Drew Studio trying to dig something up. He was practically creaming himself on the witness stand over this story. We have to talk to him. The bastard knows far more than he's letting on."

"Don't you think that will be obvious when the jurors see that he was involved with Zak Gramarye?"

"Exactly." Phoenix was getting giddy with excitement. "It's all linked. Miles, everything is going to come together, and that nail polish is the last piece of the puzzle. Past, present, everything." He snapped, suddenly remembering something. "We need to talk to Valant Gramarye. We need to go by Sunshine Coliseum."

Miles sighed heavily and drew his hand over his eyes. _Good God, here he goes. I wish he wasn't always so damn right so I did not have to indulge him._

"Phoenix, I haven't slept in thirty-six hours. I don't think I can survive the drive downtown, let alone to Lancaster."

"Then… well… shit, who else drives?"

"Most people over the age of sixteen drive."

"Yeah, I'll get my license when this is all over, but who the hell can we get to drive us all the way out there?"

* * *

Detective Gumshoe had finally been roped into driving them across Los Angeles and halfway to hell in his rusted clap-trap of a Japanese car. He had originally wanted to take one of the police cruisers so he could blare the siren and push the speedometer to its limits the entire time, but given that he was planning on leaving Los Angeles he could not take the car out of its jurisdiction, and when he asked to borrow a car from Highway Patrol, he was laughed at.

Gumshoe was every bit as annoying as Edgeworth had feared he was going to be. He babbled ceaselessly the entire time about how impressed he was with their jury system, sir, and how much he was sure it was going to help the police department and the justice system at large, and how did he figure that poor girl had gotten poisoned, and what kind of monster would want to 

poison such a sweet little thing, etc. The idiot did not even take frosty silence as an answer to his incessant questions as a hint, though Phoenix, being too polite as usual, would indulge him in conversation and encourage him. Originally Gumshoe had insisted on taking an active role in the investigation, offering any and all services he could possibly think of in a manner that reminded Miles of Pess when she wanted the opportunity to do something good to get a treat. He finally gave it up when Edgeworth snapped that his presence would compromise the integrity of the investigation, as these men would talk to Wright and Wright alone, so sit down, shut up, and stay in the car.

The drive to Drew Studio was short and sweet, and Gumshoe had the audacity to remain silent while Edgeworth was recording Wright's video footage, huddled up with his laptop in the back seat, until Phoenix emerged from the studio flushed but determined. He was daintily sipping a rather atrocious hot tea Gumshoe had insisted on getting for him from the 7-Eleven down the street, along with various other high-fructose corn-syrup semi-edible atrocities he had procured as a makeshift lunch. As unpalatable as it was, Edgeworth could not bring himself to chuck the cup out the window, especially not when he kept catching Gumshoe watching him, satisfied, out of the corners of his eyes. Phoenix tore thankfully into one of the packaged cherry pies with genuine gusto as they started driving to Sunshine Coliseum, mumbling that he hadn't eaten since yesterday. Gumshoe offered Edgeworth a Nutella bar, saying that he knew Mr. Edgeworth had European sensibilities and Nutella was European and all, and well, he just put two and two together. Edgeworth mumbled a 'thank you', which seemed enough to make Gumshoe beam until they were done with Valant and well out of the LA area.

That was the easy part. The two-hour drive to the State Prison was hell. Phoenix sat up front with Gumshoe and chatted as much as his tired brain would allow, though it was obvious he was lost in thought most of the time. His silences were punctuated by various seventies rock bands from his mp3 player, often played too damn loud. Edgeworth had stretched out in the back-seat with his laptop and was frantically splicing and organizing the evidence and footage Phoenix had collected at Drew Studio. Under normal circumstances this would not have taken so long, but his fatigued brain ran at half-speed at best, and his eyes were getting bleary from staring at the screen. They finally pulled past the security checkpoint a mile out from the prison and parked in front of the solitary block, in the same damn parking space Edgeworth had taken up just about a month ago. It was just as well; he was getting to the point that if Gumshoe made one more goddamn joke every time he saw directions to Phoenix at freeway intersections, he was going to gut him.

The sun had just set; there was still a purplish glow on the desert horizon, and the day's warmth was still radiating from the ground. Phoenix straightened his hat and made a cursory check of his video equipment before kissing Edgeworth quickly and stumbling into the prison.

This was their last chance. Everybody in the car knew it.

* * *

"Sorry, sir. Prisoner Kristoph Gavin is currently 'occupied'."

Phoenix's stomach dropped in sheer excitement. He thought he heard—more felt, somehow—Edgeworth's breath catch from across the air. He faintly heard Gumshoe yell "Score, pal!" before shushing immediately in a way that suggested Edgeworth had given him the Demon Prosecutor glare.

"I see..." He managed to keep his expression nonchalant. "Do you know when he'll be finished?"

The guard—the same woman who had chatted Phoenix up earlier—scratched the back of her head uncomfortably.

"Ah, erm. Well…"

"Could you go find out?"

"Ah…" The guard shrugged. "Certainly, sir. Please wait here a moment."

She should have known better than to leave him unattended in Gavin's cell. By all rights he should not have been allowed to go through Gavin's things. He chalked it up to his insane luck—it was either excellent or terrible, but never much in-between.

Everything was the same as it had been the last time he was there, save for a yellow envelope on Gavin's writing desk. Phoenix made a beeline for it and checked the sender. Drew Misham.

"If this is the last letter that Drew Misham wrote…" He spoke more for the benefit of the camera in his hat than for himself. "…then there's something I need to do. The last thing I need to do, in fact." He took a deep breath and fished a small spray bottle out of his hoodie pocket. "Here goes! Let's see if this atroquinine spray finds anything…"

He sprayed the envelope. A volatile, acrid smell filled his nose, and the bottle got cold. The edges of the stamp glowed vivid, ice-blue.

"So this was Drew Misham's 'messenger of death'. It was this stamp alright! No mistaking it! And his last letter… was sent to Kristoph Gavin."

He opened the letter and read it over carefully, giving the camera plenty of time to soak in every word. Edgeworth mumbled that he had captured a clear still of the image. His lips curled into a satisfied, vengeful smile.

"Gotcha," he whispered. "Finally… decisive evidence!"

"What's this? A burglar… in jail?"

"…Gavin!"

Though he had been expecting that voice, it still made his stomach drop out. But it didn't matter anymore. He had everything he needed. Nothing Gavin could do now would stop that.

He slowly folded the letter, slid it back into its envelope, and turned around, the letter still in his hand. Gavin was smiling at him coldly, as sticky-sweet and poisonous as ever. His hair looked slightly damp, and Phoenix could smell soap on him.

"I didn't know you moonlighted in larceny, Wright."

"Gavin… there's something I have to ask you."

" 'Can I steal your stuff?' The answer is 'no'."

Kristoph's eyes were glued to the envelope. Though there was no need to keep the original now, Phoenix's hand tightened slightly around it. He felt as though somebody had written 'My hat is a camera' in Sharpie on his forehead, and it suddenly felt clunky and conspicuous. The hat seemed to be the last thing on Kristoph's mind, though.

"My apologies," he finally said, straightening and pushing his glasses up his nose, "but there's not much I care to discuss."

This may be the last time he was alone with this man, or even in the same room with him. There were countless things he wanted to say—that Miles Edgeworth had survived his cowardly attack and was helping to orchestrate the final blow to his plan, that he could scarcely imagine the scum who would murder two _fathers_ to save his own arse, that tomorrow his adoring younger brother would see the full extent of his true colors, as would the entire court.

"Vera Misham hasn't received her verdict yet," he finally said. He stared, hard. "You follow me, Gavin?"

Gavin's mouth twisted into a sickening, relaxed smile.

_Just as every cop is a criminal  
And all the sinners, saints  
As heads is tails  
Just call me Lucifer  
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint_

"There are no known survivors of atroquinine poisoning. But, it never hurts to hope."

It took every ounce of willpower Phoenix possessed not to punch Gavin in the face. He clenched his fists inside his hoodie pockets and stared, hard. Gavin stared back, still smiling, though the corners of his mouth were curling in distaste.

"…okay." Phoenix turned on his heel. "I'll be leaving now, then."

"Wright. Wait."

Phoenix froze.

"Would you mind leaving that letter? It's private."

Phoenix paused for a long time before turning. Kristoph was holding out his hand, still smiling, though the longer Phoenix merely stared at him, the more his eye started to twitch. Phoenix turned fully and slapped the envelope into his palm, smiling himself.

It was a genuine smile.

_So if you meet me  
Have some courtesy  
Have some sympathy, and some taste  
Use all your well-learned politesse  
Or I'll lay your soul to waste_

As soon as he got to the car, after copious hoots and being swung around in a bear hug by Detective Gumshoe and an intensely satisfied, proud smile from Edgeworth, he called Apollo Justice and asked him to watch his inbox for a rather large video file.

* * *

And the rest of the trial is well-documented history. Once the identities of those first six jurists became declassified, many studies had been made of how Phoenix Wright's selection of those six particular people may have affected the fate of the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers in the state of California. As of October 10, 2026, nobody could be denied that right any longer. Klavier Gavin's words at the end of that trial, "The law isn't absolute. It's filled with contradictions," became a mainstay party-line for pro-jury activists, young and old, rebellious and conservative alike. The courage and purity he displayed in being able to face his elder brother's crimes earned him a near-iconic status. He became a paragon of street-wise justice, a rebel for free love and rock and roll with a pure heart, and his cult following grew even after the disbandment of the Gavineers.

Though the inclusion of Thalassa Gramarye, nee Lamiroir, as a jurist was considered by some a gross conflict of interests, others concluded that since she had no connection to the Misham family her inclusion was warranted, even brilliant, given that her memory was restored and she was eventually reunited with her two children, Apollo Justice and Trucy Wright. Apollo was a legal adult by the time this came to light, and though Trucy was still a minor Thalassa's ten-year disappearance meant that she had long-since been deemed legally dead, so as far as the courts were concerned, Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth were still Trucy's legal guardians unless they wanted to relinquish custody. Thalassa would need intensive therapy for quite some time, so she left her daughter in the care of the two men though she spent a great deal of time catching up with her children. Her psychotherapist said that her condition and outlook improved greatly every time she got to see them, though she was pained by the fact that she had missed both of her children growing up. She was proud of what honest, strong, and resourceful adults they were 

becoming, and every time Apollo defended an innocent or Trucy wowed crowds with her magic, she would gush proudly to anybody who cared to listen.

The Wright-Edgeworth patchwork family became even larger and stranger. Though Apollo was too close to Phoenix's age to really consider Phoenix a surrogate father he found himself spending more and more time with his half-sister and her strange, adoptive father, who had finally gained his trust and respect. That was expected. Even Vera Misham's frequent visits for dinner given that she was now also alone were not unexpected, nor was the way Apollo grew increasingly flustered in her presence, nor the way Trucy ever let him off the hook for that.

The sudden and frequent inclusion of Klavier Gavin was not expected, but no less welcome. And the resulting obvious conflict Apollo felt concerning him and Vera left the poor kid deeply confused and made Phoenix laugh at him. Regularly.

* * *

"You realize you're going to re-take your Bar now."

"Hmm."

Phoenix looked across the courtroom lobby to where Apollo and Trucy were being interviewed by a crowd of reporters, foremost and most pushy of whom was Bushel. Klavier Gavin, who had won even Edgeworth's grudging respect over the course of the morning, was surrounded by his own knot of reporters. Had he less experience with paparazzi Phoenix would have expected him to have a meltdown right there on live television, but he handled their questions with shocking grace and poise. Even the judge was accosted on the way out of the courtroom, and he glowed under the attention.

In an effort to avoid the same treatment, Phoenix and Edgeworth were watching the proceedings from behind the glass walls of the balcony around the lobby. A few reporters had turned to take pictures of them, though they were blissfully kept from proceeding up the stairs by security. Phoenix grasped Miles' hand and waved when another reporter pointed her camera at them, and Miles pulled out of his grasp.

"Phoenix, we are on camera."

"Exactly. Smile, or they'll think we're having a lover's spat."

"I fail to see how it's any of their damn business whether or not we're having a lover's spat."

Phoenix laughed. "Are we?"

"Stop changing the subject. You're re-taking your Bar."

"I'm a bit rusty for that."

"You'll study. I'll make you study."

"I was considering maybe really learning how to play piano now that I have more time on my hands." He paused. "Besides, I've been a piano player longer than I've been a lawyer now."

"Oh, shut up. You never stopped being a lawyer. You can learn all the piano you want, as far as I'm concerned. You're still going to re-take your Bar."

A familiar voice inside Phoenix's head said 'He's right, you know.' And Phoenix turned.

The hallway was empty. Phoenix felt—strongly—that there was somebody there, watching him, nonetheless. The presence was overwhelming. His heart started pounding.

"Phoenix? What's wrong?"

"Shhh."

He held up his hand for silence and stared harder. Maybe something in the quality of the air changed, fluctuated, but he still saw nothing.

And then, as though something else had reached down through his nerves, he grabbed the magatama in his pocket.

The breath caught in his throat. He gasped.

Mia Fey was watching him with her arms loosely crossed, dressed in the skirt suit and scarf she always wore in court. Diego Armando stood behind her with his hands in his pockets, hair dark and wild and dressed in the red shirt he used to wear as a defense attorney. He was giving Phoenix a rueful, but begrudgingly proud smile.

They both looked happy. Phoenix could feel the closeness between them. Their smiles were infectious; they tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"Phoenix?"

Phoenix grabbed Miles' hand, and Miles gasped. His pupils fixated on where the ghosts stood, and they contracted in shock. His breath caught.

Mia giggled behind her hand at Miles' reaction. Diego placed his hand on her shoulder and leaned down to whisper in her ear, and she laughed even harder.

"Hey—" The confusion dissipated from Edgeworth's face quickly. "What did you say to her?"

The ghosts started laughing harder, and Phoenix was now cracking up as well. Miles rolled his eyes and shoved his free hand in his pocket.

"What do they want, then?"

The ghosts disappeared. Miles' jaw dropped again. He stuttered.

"Would you calm down?"

Phoenix was still laughing. It had been a long, long time since Edgeworth had seen him so thoroughly happy and uninhibited.

"I think they just wanted to say that they're proud of us."

* * *

"Phoenix."

Phoenix and Clockwork looked up at the door. Professor Edgeworth was standing there, arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe. He had an unfathomable expression, tinged with nostalgia and the weight of memory, though the corners of his mouth were slightly upturning, and the smile had already reached his eyes. Phoenix wondered how long he had been standing outside the door eavesdropping.

"I was wondering why I was not being assailed by your infernal noise."

"You're damn right it's infernal."

Phoenix stuck out his tongue and gave Miles the devil horns. Clockwork started laughing and gathered up Clover, who curled up, kneading her skin like any normal cat, and fell asleep in her palm.

"Right." Miles rolled his eyes. "I was under the impression I was married to a man in his fifties, not committing statutory rape."

"Oh, Miles, this is Victoria Clockwork; she's a PhD candidate in, uh, history of, uh—"

"History of evolution of social systems." She stood and held her hand out to Edgeworth, who took it. "You're Professor Edgeworth, aren't you?"

"Yes. You have an appointment with me tomorrow, if I recall correctly."

"Oh, good. I can get your side of the story and see how it compares to Professor Wright's."

"Oh God," Phoenix mumbled.

"Oh, I'd be _glad_ to give my side of the story."

"Excellent. Thank you, sir."

She turned to Phoenix, having just spent what became an intensely frank and intimate afternoon, and held out her hand, which he took warmly.

"Thank you so much for all of your time, sir. This—what you've told me is absolutely perfect. Just what I was looking for."

"No problem."

She excused herself and left, leaving the two men alone in Phoenix's office. Phoenix sighed and sat back, taking a deep drink from his water bottle.

"We're late to dinner."

Phoenix thought for a moment, looked at his desk clock, and sputtered when he realized that it was already almost seven. Miles pulled his coat off the hook on his door and threw it at him.

"You're going to be the one to explain to Maggey why we're late."

"You wouldn't do that to me."

"Wouldn't I?"

"I'll leave you to fend for yourself with Gumshoe the entire night. I don't care how much he's had to drink."

* * *

"_What do you think, Kitten? Do you think that could have been you had you still been alive?"_

_In the physical plane, in Phoenix's office, Miles sputtered indignantly and said that Phoenix would not dare do that to him. Though their physical manifestations were only necessary for the sake of communicating with those still-living, even in metaphysical space Mia was doing the equivalent of laughing behind her hand._

"_Hm? I'm sorry, what?"_

"_Revolutionizing the court system, returning power to the hands of the people?" _

_His consciousness merged with hers, caressed it, in a way that was equivalent to kissing slowly up her neck. In death they found themselves in a state of perpetual loving euphoria akin to a lazy Sunday morning after a mind-blowing Saturday night, though they could easily phase into an orgasmic sort of union should they so desire. _

"_There's really no way of knowing if I would have been in the right position at the right time to do that. Life's strange like that. But I do think the fact that he never wanted to be in that position means it was quite fortunate that he was."_


	9. Tangent 01: The Winner Takes It All

**Tangent Memory 01: The Winner Takes It All (Maya)**

"Mystic Maya?"

"Hm?"

"Do you love Mr. Nick?"

Maya stopped mid-lick of her ice cream cone. Pearl was sitting next to her on the park bench, swinging her legs and staring at her, hard, ignoring the ice cream running down the blade of her hand.

"I…" Maya licked some ice cream that was threatening to melt down the side of her cone. "Yeah. Of course I do, Pearl. He's like my brother. We've been through a lot together."

"That's not what I mean."

Maya sighed. "Pearly…"

"Don't lie." God _damn_, that child could look terrifying when she stared at you like that. "You _do_ love Mr. Nick, don't you? I can feel it when you're near him."

"Pearl…"

She felt as though she had been stabbed in the stomach. She had already been fighting off the waves of nausea she felt every time she thought about what Nick and Edgeworth were probably doing at _this very second_, and this second blow brought the taste of bile. She stared at the top of her ice cream, mapped the thin lines her tongue had patterned across the surface. Glass ground in her throat._  
_

"Sometimes, just because you love somebody, doesn't mean they're going to love you back."

"Why?"

"Well…" Maya sighed heavily. "I don't know. I don't think anybody does."

"…I don't understand."

Maya sighed heavily and opened her mouth to say something, but just closed it and stared at her ice cream. It wasn't that Pearl was intellectually incapable of understanding the concept. Children have an odd way of saying that they don't understand something when they fully well understand it, but don't want to _accept_ it, because it's just too sad or depressing or unfair. They don't _want_ to understand it. There is unconscious magical thinking in that, as though by asking over and over again, and not understanding, the answer will change, and it will turn out that the adults had just been being cynical and foolish all along.

"I don't either, Pearl," she finally said. "I don't either."

"But the power of love can make anything happen. If you love Mr. Nick enough, he'll have to love you back."

Maya smiled sadly. A rivet of ice cream melted over and ran down the side of her finger, mesmerizing. She could suddenly, and oddly clearly, see every crack and fault in her skin. She lifted her hand and licked it off.

"Come on," she said. She stood and beckoned to Pearl, trying her best to smile brightly, though she knew her pain was transparent. Her eyes stung. "There are some cute shops around here. Let's go look."

"Mystic Maya…"

Pearl was glowering, hard. Maya stared back at her for a long time, entering a silent battle of wills in which she wordlessly begged her cousin to give it up, but Pearl's gaze did not waver. Her lower lip was firmed in that almost-pout she had when she was feeling especially stubborn.

She wanted to tell Pearl it would only hurt both her and Nick more if she did not give this up. She wanted to tell her that it would ruin the friendship they _did_ have. She wanted to tell her that her efforts were utterly futile, and that this was not a Disney movie in which everything was simple and certain and always worked out all right in the end. She just sighed and shook her head. Suddenly, it was so clear why adults had always said the thing that pissed her off the most when she was a kid. They said it because it was true. They said it because they wanted it to be true.

No child should have to understand this.

"You'll understand when you're older."

* * *

_I don't wanna talk__  
About things we've gone through__  
Though it's hurting me  
Now it's history_

She had always envisioned her dream man as somebody eccentric, somebody as deeply into fandom as she was, willing to cosplay and take weekend trips on a whim and try new things, _just because_.

She never thought she would wind up falling in love with a man like _him_.

It was not that he was unattractive. He had that rare-but-alluring combination of blue eyes and black hair, high cheekbones and good skin, and an easy, open smile. He was easy to read. He had the strong, broad shoulders and long legs romantic leads would kill for.

It was not that he wasn't one of those rare, fundamentally-good people in the world. He was kind. He was earnest. He championed the underdogs and put his life and career in danger for the sake of other people, sometimes rather rashly and naively. He was a radical opponent of the tyranny of the majority. She had never had any trouble respecting him. Hell, she had never had any trouble _admiring_ him.

Beyond that, though, he was… boring.

She never would have thought he was an art student before deciding to go to law school. As messy as his office was without her clerical input he was ruthlessly meticulous with his bookkeeping and endlessly, painfully practical. When left to his own devices he was content to consume a steady diet of frozen dinners, the History Channel, books, and the occasional independent film down by the university. He was comfortable with a predictable, quiet schedule. His concern for his wardrobe extended so far as to rouse him into the occasional Goodwill trip when his casual clothes were coming apart at the seams, and those casual clothes were jeans and hoodies and t-shirts and the occasional collared shirt and blazer. He sprung for new boxers and socks, at least, but 'springing' for him meant going to Target. Gel insoles were an indulgence, almost necessary in his secondhand dress shoes. He liked classical music and twentieth-century rock, the Stones and Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and all the bands _everybody else_ in the world liked. He saw no reason to go out and _do_ things when they could do the equivalent at home; going for the sake of _going_ made no sense to him. When he was bored at work he played solitaire or hearts on the computer, despite her recommendation of several free MMOs and other games with, heaven forbid, a plot or some depth and creativity.

_I've played all my cards  
And that's what you've done too  
Nothing more to say  
No more ace to play_

It caught her by surprise when she caught him sketching one day. He never showed his artwork to anybody.

She had returned by the office in the evening as she had forgotten her cell phone, and he had not heard her come in. He was cradling the office phone with his shoulder and sketching. She had gotten a good glimpse over his shoulder before he had started and snapped the sketchbook shut, sputtering that he had not heard her come in. Were he not on the phone at the time, she would have pestered him to allow her to see more. She waited out in the lobby for a full half hour, but when it was evident the call was going to continue for a while longer, she let herself out.

The sketch had been of Prosecutor Edgeworth. It was in profile, with odd shadows covering his eyes, but it was clearly Edgeworth. Nick had that artist's skill for conveying a clear identity with only a few details.

Of course, as soon as she had the office to herself, she dug through the junk in his desk drawers until she found his sketchbook buried in the back corner beneath several fat, manila accordion-folders of tax accounts. The date on the first sketch was only last month. It was a landscape, trees and water ruffled by the wind, and all this conveyed only with charcoal and hatch-markings.

She was used to opening a friend's sketchbook to find pages upon pages of fantasy-related artwork, all creativity and magic and eccentricity and color. Nick only drew things he saw in real life, _as_ he saw them. His lines conveyed motion and fluidity and a cohesive, intuitive sense of the whole. They were dreamlike, lucid. But, his drawings were so raw and _frank_. There were no idealizations. For all that Mia was a stunning woman, he had drawn her eyes off-center, as they actually were if one cared to look closely enough. Pearl's lips had the rough appearance of somebody who chewed on them when nervous. Maya herself was flat-chested, knock-kneed and curveless as she was in real life. Larry was just plain awkward-looking and lanky, as though he had never outgrown adolescence. Maggey had freckles and slightly crooked teeth. Detective Gumshoe's eyes were a little too small, and his chin disproportionately large relative to the rest of his face. Did Franziska von Karma actually have that mole behind her ear? Prosecutor Edgeworth's eyes were hollow, sunken and sleepless, and there was already a crease forming between his brows.

They were all beautiful. They were all drawn with so much love.

Nick had always had a knack for noticing the small details. This in-of-itself was not an unusual trait. But, unlike most detail-oriented people, he could integrate these details into the whole and keep them in perspective.

Nick had always loved people for who they were, for all their flaws and humanity.

He had already filled half the sketchbook—which, she checked, was two-hundred pages according to the cover—in the span of a month. There were a disproportionate number of pictures of Prosecutor Edgeworth. The picture of Edgeworth she had seen him working on last night was the last entry. He had shaded it, fleshed out the stark shadows under his eyes and the hollow, gaunt planes of his cheeks. He looked like a ravaged corpse. She ran her fingers across the page gently, taking care not to smear the lead.

A work of art was rocked to its core by the artist's feelings. Anybody with even the most rudimentary spiritual training could feel it. This piece in particular _screamed_ its concern to her. A sense of vertigo reeled her; she was suddenly overcome with an unspeakable sense of betrayal, loss, and pain.

"_I'm in love with Miles Edgeworth."_

_His voice was broken over the phone, strained. Maya hugged her knees, huddled in the honey-colored darkness of Kurain's antechamber. There wasn't a damn thing she could do to comfort her best friend, not all the way out here._

She realized she had forgotten to breathe. She closed the sketchbook and carefully replaced it beneath the tax returns.

For all that he had no imagination, he saw the world in all its insane, complex, unbelievable, and impossible reality in a way nobody else she had ever known could. And, for all his sarcasm, he embraced it.

_The gods may throw a dice  
Their minds as cold as ice  
And someone way down here  
Loses someone dear  
_

She had found that sketchbook during the year Prosecutor Edgeworth was presumed dead, after having left that cowardly, childish note and leaving Nick shattered in his wake. Nick hid his pain admirably from his clients, but through her psychic hypersensitivity it was painfully obvious to Maya how much he was hurting. His psyche was marred by a constant turmoil of betrayal, confusion, guilt, anger, and grief. When anybody mentioned Prosecutor Edgeworth around him, his face suddenly went gaunt, haunted, and he demanded that his name never be spoken in his presence again. The pain Nick felt stab through his gut stabbed Maya by proxy.

_The winner takes it all  
The loser has to fall  
It's simple and it's plain  
Why should I complain?_

She was furious with Prosecutor Edgeworth.

It was such a small, cowardly thing to do, to leave a dramatic, self-pitying note like that and drop off the face of the earth just when people were starting to care about him again. People show their true selves when they are put under pressure. Maya had been impressed with him at first, even a little intimidated, but now, she saw him as nothing but a very cowardly and weak man. He was selfish. It was in such sharp contrast to Nick's selflessness and courage.

Shortly after, Nick had told her about the letters he had been writing to Edgeworth for fifteen years, continuing even without receiving a single reply. Maya understood why he had not wanted to tell anybody about that, as it was, quite frankly, terrifyingly obsessive and stalkerish, though they now both suspected Edgeworth had not received a single one of those letters as Manfred von Karma was acting as his adoptive father during that time. It was still foolish, even by Maya's incredibly emotional standards of suitability, to go to law school just to try to 'save' a friend he had not spoken to for more than a decade. In real life one did not 'save' people like that. Maybe before Edgeworth had done this to Nick, she would have seen things differently, and she realized that. She was a true romantic at heart. Now, however, she could only regard Edgeworth as utterly unworthy of any sacrifices.

Edgeworth said he had run away because he felt it was the right thing to do. That was bullshit. To try to hide his cowardice with some vestige of courage was sickening. The _real_ right thing to do would have been to stay and face those he had wronged, and to own up to his mistakes and make amends. In what way was running away the right or honorable or courageous thing to do? But of course, Nick bought it. Or, at least he tried to convince himself that he did.

* * *

_But tell me does she kiss  
Like I used to kiss you?  
Does it feel the same  
When she calls your name?_

"Then why were you kissing?"

Maya stopped. She heard Pearl stop behind her and turned. Pearl had crossed her arms and was glowering accusingly.

"You saw that?"

"The night after Mr. Nick rescued you from Matt Engarde; I saw you two kissing on the couch." She straightened her shoulders confidently and pointed, something she had been doing entirely too much since accompanying Nick to court. "That's proof that you two are in love!"

Her heart was being crushed. She looked away and wet her tongue, willing herself not to start tearing up.

"Sometimes… well… kissing somebody doesn't mean that you love them, or want to be with them forever. It isn't like it is in stories."

Pearl was silent for a moment. Maya did not turn around.

"But that's stupid," she finally blurted out. "Why would you kiss somebody if you didn't love them?"

Maya stared at the ground, fists clenched at her sides.

* * *

"He doesn't deserve you, Nick."

Nick had gotten himself entirely too drunk the night after the conclusion of the Engarde case after Pearl had gone to bed. He was sprawled out on his couch in his apartment, hand draped over his eyes, and Maya was sitting on the floor next to him. His free arm dangled over the side of the couch, and Maya leaned into it, hoping he would reciprocate. He weakly held her, and her stomach flipped with giddiness. The card onto which she had scrawled his profile during her confinement in Engarde's basement was still in his breast pocket.

She had realized she was in love with him.

She had realized this just as Prosecutor Edgeworth had re-appeared into their lives, and just as Nick was trying to drown his confusion and pain.

"You deserve so much better, Nick. You really do."

Phoenix's voice was quiet. The fan flickered bars of shadow over his supine body.

"Deep down he's really an amazing guy."

"So what?" Maya pulled away from Nick and stared at him, trying to keep her voice level. Her chest welled with rage. This was the same fucking conversation they had had a billion times in the past year. It never changed. She knew repeating the same arguments in some twisted way helped him feel less confused, maybe because he just needed an external voice constantly telling him what he already knew, but this was getting damn old. It was already bad enough when Edgeworth was in the steady-state of being gone and uncommunicative; now, he had swept back into their lives to save both of their asses, and had played off of Nick in the courtroom in a shockingly perceptive and humane maneuver to prolong the trial. It was noble and brilliant. Miles Edgeworth was not supposed to act noble and start showing some backbone and moral compass; that complicated things greatly. It was so much easier to demonize him when he was an absent, unresponsive asshole. And damn it, she felt indebted to him now. It was so much easier to appreciate him for the fucked up, ultimately good man he was and feel genuinely grateful when Nick was not tortured by his presence. She had even been able to be genuinely cheerful and welcoming when he was hovering around their group post-victory and oozing painful awkwardness she had yet to see in anybody else out of high school. But as the night wore on and she started drifting back toward Nick, the turmoil devouring his gut ate at her as well, and her patience toward Edgeworth dropped sharply. His flaws came to the fore and seemed so much harder to endure.

She had always hated girls who would be sticky-sweet and welcoming to somebody's face when they really hated that person, and who then gossiped as soon as they were out of earshot. Now she understood why some of them did it. They felt guilty of their own petty jealousies and knew the ramifications for their other relationships could be dire if they showed their true conflicted emotions.

"Maybe in the past he was a good person, but I don't think he's that guy anymore. He certainly hasn't acted like it."

"He came all the way out here to help us. With the case." Phoenix's words were slurred. "He had a fucked up childhood. He doesn't know how to deal with his feelings."

"Oh, for God's sake, he's twenty-five years old, Nick! You can't keep making excuses for him! He's old enough to know better!"

Phoenix did not respond. Maya sighed heavily and stood, leaning over him and squinting to see him through the shadows. His eyes where obscured by his arm.

He sobbed.

"Nick?"

Tears were collecting in his eyes. He scrunched his eyelids, and tears ran down his cheeks. He took a shaking breath.

"Nick…"

Maya leaned on her forearms on either side of his broad shoulders and brushed his tears away with her thumb. Something in her gut clenched painfully.

"Nick… I'm sorry. I… I just really think you have to let him go." She paused. "He's not worth this. I know he came back and everything, but he's just not worth this. People can't just do one good thing and expect it to make up for all the tons of bad things they've done over the years. That's too easy."

Phoenix did not respond. Maya sighed and rested her cheek on his chest, curling her legs beneath her and listening to the steady heartbeat beneath his dress shirt. He smelled of overpowering, cheap cologne, masculine and intoxicating. His chest rose and fall beneath her ear, halting with sobs. His large, course hand came up and stroked her hair. Her stomach fluttered, and something hot coiled within her abdomen at the contact.

She looked up. His forearm was still draped over his eyes, and tears were still running down his cheeks. He was hissing through his teeth, haltingly, trying to hold back sobs.

"Nick…"

Phoenix hissed, sharply, and released a shuddering sob.

"Maybe deep down he's a great guy. I mean, I can see that too…" It was a half-truth, and the jealousy and bitterness remained sour on her tongue. "…but you can't live your life based on what potential you have deep down. You have to act on it. And frankly, up until now, he hasn't been."

"Wasn't that from _Spider-Man_ or something…?"

"_Batman_. Look…"

Maya sighed and curled her legs up closer underneath herself, snuggling further into Nick's warmth. He stiffened, as if suddenly realizing how close she was getting, and her heart stopped. Time suspended for several long, agonizing seconds, and Nick shifted. For an agonizing split-second Maya was afraid he was going to shed her off and leave, but he re-adjusted his weight and stilled.

Her heart started pounding. He had accepted her physical closeness. She cautiously started rubbing his ribs through his shirt with her thumb, and his only response was to stroke her hair. She shifted her cheek on his chest and stared under his chin, praying he would look down.

"Nick…"

This was not the most attractive angle for him. He tilted his chin down into his chest, and Maya had a good look up his running nose. His eyes were bloodshot. His breath reeked of that cheap old bottle of Jose Cuervo he had refused to toss out of his office; she could have sworn this morning it was over a quarter full. He was one of the few people she knew who could stand the stuff straight; he said his mom used to put it on his gums when he had a toothache, and would give him shots as a kid if he had a cold to clear up his congestion. The bottle lay empty by the couch. _Damn it, Nick; how many shots is that?_

She sighed and pulled away from his chest, leaning over him to grab the tissue box on the end table behind his head, and realized as she was pulling back down to her knees that she had just shoved her breasts in front of his face. He was such a mess it was hard to know if he noticed, but he mumbled his thanks as he blew his nose loudly and dropped the tissue on the floor. Maya scowled down at it.

"I'm not picking that up."

"I'm not… I'll…" Nick sniffed and ran his hand over his eyes, grunting awkwardly. "I'm sorry; what?"

"Never mind."

Her stomach coiled with nervousness, and she settled back down into his chest, resuming stroking his flank. Growing up in Kurain she had no male friends her own age, and she was still enthralled by the basic physiological differences in the opposite sex: how he seemed to radiate heat, how he was all flat planes and broad shoulders and awkward, bony angles through his cheap shirt. Though he was just over average height for a man his body was so _big_ compared to hers, sparse and gangly. He had an amazing ass, probably mostly because he biked everywhere he went, though he seemed utterly unaware of it. She smirked to herself; if she said anything to that effect, he would probably blush and mumble something non-committal. There was two-days worth of stubble on his face, and she desperately wanted to feel it against the grain to see if it felt as sandpapery as it looked. She assumed it would feel much as her legs did after a couple of days without shaving. She wanted to feel the unevenness and rough patches and bumps on his skin, wanted to confirm his humanity and presence through his flaws. She was replacing her fantasies with a very immediate reality beneath her hands. She had always thought she would be repulsed by male roughness and body hair, but she was quickly realizing she did not mind it. At least he did not have back hair or chest hair; that was where she drew the 'disgusting' line. She did have to admit she liked that trail of hair some guys had going down their stomachs to their groins, and she wondered—

"Hey, Maya?"

"Hm?"

Nick opened his mouth as though he was going to say something, and Maya's stomach dropped out.

"…no." His voice was quiet. "Never mind."

"No, what? What is it?"

"It's nothing; it's just… nothing…"

"_Nick_." Maya propped herself up on her elbows and stared at him. "Spit it out. What's wrong?"

"No, it's just—" Nick waved his hand dismissively and turned on his side, facing away from her. "Never mind, Maya. Just forget about it. It's not important."

"Yes it is!"

Maya grabbed his shoulders and turned him back around so he was facing her. Nick gave her a sad, almost half-smiling look. He sighed and closed his eyes.

"Just… please, Maya, forget I said anything."

"Do you like me?"

She blurted the words before she fully realized what she was saying. She covered her mouth, breath bated, feeling like she was going to pass out. Nick just kept his eyes closed and did not respond, did not move. Her heart hammered in her ears as the time stretched out, tension palpable, and finally burst when Nick exhaled and covered his eyes with his hand.

"…Maya…"

Her hand was still over her mouth. Phoenix opened his eyes and blinked, then looked down.

"…I don't know." His voice was barely-audible, drowned out if she breathed too hard. She held her breath to preserve the silence. "I don't think I can answer that right now."

"…that means you do, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but…" Nick sighed heavily and threw his head back on the armrest again, running his fingers over his eyes. "I can't… I don't know, Maya. I'm sorry. I just don't know right now. I don't think I can… be with anybody else right now. Emotionally, or—"

"Why?"

"I just _can't_, all right?"

"It's Mr. Edgeworth, isn't it?"

"Well, _yes_."

"I know you're in love with him, but I just don't think he's the same guy you're in love with. I mean—" Maya sighed heavily and curled up with her head resting on his chest again. His heart was pounding as well; she felt a thrill at the realization. "—you know what I think about all of this."

He did not respond. Maya shifted and curled her arm under his chest, hugging herself to him. She nuzzled under his neck.

"You can't love somebody until you let go of your past."

They were silent for a while. Maya had resumed stroking Nick's side with her fingertips, and Nick had finally started stroking her hair once again. She was warm and felt thoroughly content, sure if she were a cat she would be purring, but she balanced on the edge of saying something, doing something, to make her feelings known. She kept backing away at the last second. If she got too close, he would get uncomfortable and shove her away, but this might be her last chance to say anything.

It was finally time to go over the top.

She pushed herself up on her arms, shaking, and stared down at Nick's dozing face as his hand slid limply off the top of her head. His lips were parted slightly, barely showing the tips of his teeth. His eyelids were red and swollen. He exhaled an essence of tequila. He was by no means at his most attractive right now; he was not one of those people who became beautiful when he cried, but like Maya, got a blotchy face and a runny nose. But his lower lip was red and swollen from chewing on it, and that, in a morbid way, was beautiful.

Her stomach coiled. She leaned down, closing the distance between them, and paused with her lips barely parted over his. He breathed in and out of her mouth, breath hot and stale with alcohol but _his_. She barely brushed her lips against his, and it was dry and rough and strange. She pressed in, harder, and suddenly it was wet and slimy and strange. Nick gasped and stiffened, and Maya's heart stopped for a second—but then reciprocated, threading his fingers through her hair and pressing his tongue against hers.

Maya had read various strange metaphors for kissing, and she had formulated her expectations and fantasies around them, but this… wasn't quite what she was expecting. She was surprised by how big and broad their tongues felt; she had expected them to feel thinner, more able to 'twine like snakes' or 'battle for dominance', but Nick's tongue filled his own mouth, and she couldn't push her own past it, or twine around it. She pressed the flat of her tongue against his, rubbing, massaging, and found that this worked; this was foreign, but not in the least unpleasant. His mouth was larger than hers and when he worked his jaw sometimes his teeth grazed against her skin, just outside her lips. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she was going to pass out, but she stabilized herself through the head-rush.

She collapsed on top of him, and he exhaled sharply into her mouth, which made her giggle slightly. Phoenix suddenly pushed her off by the shoulders and sat up, burying his head in his hands.

Maya's stomach froze. She settled back on her legs and reached for his shoulder.

"Nick…"

"Don't."

She froze. Nick did not look up. He sighed.

"I'm sorry, Maya… I just can't. Just… forget this ever happened, okay?"

Bile rose in the back of her throat.

"I…" She tried to work her tongue around what she wanted to say, but the shape felt wrong; something in her chest caught. "Nick…"

"I'm sorry."

"_Why_?"

She knew as she said it that it sounded angry, petulant, but she was getting too upset to care. Her chest was being crushed. Nick stood up and walked toward his bedroom, half-closed the door, paused, and turned around, half-stepping out of the door.

"I'm sorry, Maya." His eyes were still red. He looked on the verge of tears again, confused, aching, and guilty. She reached into his mind, and all she could sense was a turmoil of confusion, affection, and aching. There were no words either of them could put to the emotions. She could only sense what was in another person's conscious mind; things hidden, intuitive and beneath the surface even that person did not know, were obscured to her. "I… look. Maybe someday, something can happen, but not now. I just can't do it right now. I'm sorry."

She still couldn't breathe. She wet her tongue, realized how dry it was, but she couldn't form any sounds before the door closed.

She lost track of how long she spent curled up on the couch sobbing. She kept hoping, manipulative though she knew it was, that Nick would hear her and come out and comfort her, but the door remained closed. At some point she had passed out. She was woken up mid-morning by Pearl shaking her shoulders and asking where Mr. Nick had gone. During the night somebody had tucked a blanket firmly around her, and there was a half-eaten box of doughnuts on the coffee table with a note in Nick's familiar messy hand: "I'm sorry, Maya."

* * *

"I don't know, Pearl," she finally said. "I don't know."

* * *

"Maybe someday." It held all the hope in the world.

She held on to that hope for a year before it was crushed.

_Somewhere deep inside  
You must know I miss you  
But what can I say  
Rules must be obeyed_

She could not talk to Pearl, not in a meaningful adult way, about all of this. Pearl's insistence that she and Mr. Nick were destined to be together twisted the knife deep in her gut, and precocious and perceptive as she was, she refused to accept the reality of the situation in any workable manner. As much as it soothed her heart to have Pearl give her false hope, Maya knew it was ultimately damaging. She had to deal with reality, not dreams and possibilities, or she would never, ever move forward.

The few times that she had been able to talk to Mia, the advice had been predictable and crushing. Mia had fallen in love with a boy who had broken her heart in college, and she said that she had felt her life was over for quite a long time after that. But, she would not have been able to _see_ Diego Armando as a potential lover—even though she didn't say anything until it was too late—until she let that boy go in her heart. And, ultimately, Diego was better for her. It was damn near impossible at the time to even conceive of another person consuming her heart, but it had happened to her as it had happened to countless people since the dawn of humanity.

"I know your heart is broken," Mia had said, sitting cross-legged on the floor of Wright and Co. Law Offices. She was bursting out of Pearl's robes. It was after midnight, and Nick had already gone home. "Trust me, I know how that feels. Nobody can describe it. But you have to move on, for your sake and Phoenix's. Otherwise, you're going to be stuck like this forever."

"But Mr. Edgeworth is such a screwed up person; what if he leaves Nick again, or something happens—"

"And you think waiting around is going to magically make that more likely?"

"No—"

"You can't put your entire life on hold waiting for something like that to happen. If it does, it does. You can deal with it when it happens. But you can't shut everybody out of your heart because you are afraid of losing that chance with Phoenix. I know you're afraid things will be complicated if you're involved with somebody else _if_ that happens, and, heaven forbid, that you're in love with that other person. You're afraid it will make you look flakey. It _will_ make things complicated, and people you care about will get hurt. But everything will be all right in the end. The alternative is putting your entire life on hold, and if you do that, you may not realize how many real chances for happiness you missed waiting for something that is not meant to be—until it is too late."

As much as Maya hated to admit Mia was right, being in love with two men at once seemed like the least of her problems at that point. None of the guys in her life at that point interested her but Phoenix. And, as shallow as it made her feel, once she had made out with somebody for the first time, she could not stop thinking about it and craving that sort of attention once again. Her motives felt so much cleaner before that point.

_The judges will decide  
The likes of me abide  
Spectators of the show  
Always staying low_

"He said, 'maybe someday'." Her heart and mind held onto this like a talisman, the only warm or bright thing she could see right now. "I felt… that he meant it. He really meant it at the time."

"I don't doubt that. He probably did. But 'maybe' isn't 'yes', and it's tempting to misread it that way when we want something that badly."

_  
The game is on again  
A lover or a friend  
A big thing or a small  
The winner takes it all_

She had made a peace with knowing Nick had affections for her, even if he loved somebody else more. She had, if only for a moment, occupied his heart. That was their moment. He was hers for that one night. Nobody could ever take that away.

They had not spoken about it for a long time. It was always there, palpable, especially in emotionally-intense moments when they were alone together, but slowly she sensed that Nick truly lost his awkwardness and came to feel comfortable around her as though she was a little sister. And though it hurt, it was okay; she could feel that he genuinely valued her presence, which cut down on a little of the delusion of scorn inherent in being rejected, but also left her no room to hope for anything more. She knew that was for the best; she knew that holding out hope for him would only put her life and emotions on hold, and make her unable to see possible romances when they presented themselves.

But, in all the time that passed since, she had yet to meet anybody who made her feel like Nick did.

* * *

_I don't wanna talk  
If it makes you feel sad  
And I understand  
You've come to shake my hand_

The restaurant Maya and Pearl had chosen usually required reservations, but Edgeworth had used his clout to get them a table on such short notice. Maya felt a stab of sick loathing at this flagrant show of power, something akin to what she felt every time she saw his tacky sports car, but she was accustomed to brushing it aside and attributing its vehemence to her jealousy and hurt.

She had bought an evening gown that set well with her figure. She did not have much of a waist, so she had found a midnight blue dress that did not draw attention to her midriff and showed off her rather nice shoulders. Pearl had fallen in love with a rather tacky, many-layered lacy monstrosity from the children's section that on an older girl would have screamed of Lolita fetish-wear, but Maya had to admit on Pearl it did look rather cute. She had pulled Pearl's hair out of its loops and brushed it out so it fell down around her shoulders, and the little girl could not stop spinning and watching her skirt and hair flutter around her the entire time they were waiting for the boys to be ready to go.

They had a secluded corner-booth with a view of the dining room, all polished wood and bright lighting and modern décor. Pearl stalled as the group was being shown its table to look up at the grand chandelier in the ceiling, and as soon as they were seated, she crawled out under the table to go stare up at it in awe. When she had enough she returned to the table to pull the centers out of her bread, despite Nick's light scolding and Maya's encouragement by eating her crusts. The waitress did not card when Maya replied that she would like to try the champagne that was offered, and at her insistence, Nick and Edgeworth agreed to some as well. Pearl had stared mesmerized at the pale golden bubbles rising up through the flue until Maya agreed to let her try some, despite Nick's sputtering that they were going to get arrested, but his fears were short-lived as she spat out the one tiny sip she took.

Maya was relieved that Nick looked a lot better than he had that morning. He was still prone to spells of silent brooding, but Pearl was especially insistent in keeping him involved in the conversation, and she noticed that Edgeworth would discreetly grasp his hand beneath the table and give him a comforting squeeze if he started looking too forlorn. Maya only noticed because she was hyper-sensitive to any such activities between the two, and there was an insanely powerful psychic burst associated with that action—despite the lack of inflection in his facial expression Edgeworth's mind screamed its concern to Phoenix, and the comfort he tried to convey through his hand enveloped his aura like a cloak.

_I apologize  
If it makes you feel bad  
Seeing me so tense  
No self-confidence_

Sometimes, she would catch Nick's eye, especially after sharing a mutual story or an inside joke nobody else got, and something sad and melancholy, unreadable and bittersweet, would be in his expression. An unspoken awareness would pass between them. No words could express it, and they never tried. He would just smile sadly, and she would do the same and look down as she felt a snatch of question, a flutter deep in his heart of ache and regret, cross his mind.

_What if?_

But the flutter would disappear, and he would convince himself that ultimately he had made the right decision and that he loved Miles Edgeworth. Though he still had feelings for her there was no confusion as to whether or not his decision was right: just sadness that he had hurt her, an almost half-wish she had never had feelings for him. And both of them wished the whole situation could have been simpler.

And then there was something longing, something bittersweet, neither of them could put words to. And it was all right. Putting words to it would only distort it. All they could do was smile sadly, and hope the other understood.

They could have been a family. Everything could have been perfect.

She could wait to cry until she was on her own.

They _were_ a family. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't the way she had wanted it. But few things in life ever are.

And it was all right.

Someday, her heart was going to heal.


End file.
